


Call My Name or Walk On By

by themorninglark



Category: Free!
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - The Breakfast Club, High School, M/M, Mostly Gen, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 15:44:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2552969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/pseuds/themorninglark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Saturday morning. Makoto would rather be anywhere but here in detention with his best friend and three total strangers.</p><p>But the universe has a warped sense of humour, and the five of them are about to have their lives changed forever by this chance crossing of their paths.</p><p>A Free! Breakfast Club AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 7.00am - strangers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hythelia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hythelia/gifts).



> First things first, HUGE THANKS to hythelia for the absolutely amazing prompt, which was: 
> 
> _"The Breakfast Club" AU. Essentially, none of the five have met before (other than maybe Makoto and Haru, if you want to keep their childhood backstory close to canon), until they're all stuck in detention together. The relationships would develop over the course of detention, so really it's more pre-slash and a character study than anything else. Have fun with it! (Pairings: MakoRin and ReiGisa)_
> 
> This was one request I really hoped I would get, and I was so, so excited to work on it. I hope it meets all your expectations!
> 
> This fic is probably a better read if you are familiar with The Breakfast Club, but I have been told that it's still enjoyable with no prior knowledge.
> 
> Fic title comes from the movie's iconic song, "Don't You (Forget About Me)".

**7.00am**

_Saturday, September 20, 2008.  
_ _Iwatobi High School, Iwatobi, Tottori-ken, Japan_

_“Dear Principal Yamada,_

_We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was that we did wrong. What we did was wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write this essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a prince and a criminal. Correct?_

_That’s the way we saw each other at seven o’clock this morning. We were brainwashed…”_

 

**7.06am**

Makoto is sitting in the fourth row of an empty classroom on a Saturday, with Haru silent beside him, two others he doesn’t recognise, and Matsuoka Rin, professional delinquent, at the back of the room with his feet on the table and chair tipped back.

He puts his head in his hands and glances over at Haru dolefully. _What are we both doing here, Haru?_

Haru meets his gaze, and gives a small shrug. His face is impassive as always.

Their principal bustles into the classroom. “You’re all on time! Even Matsuoka! Well, well.”

Makoto sneaks a small glance over his shoulder. Matsuoka doesn’t look like he’s registered Principal Yamada’s presence at all. He’s still staring at the ceiling, his arms folded.

The blond boy on the other side of the room stands up and twirls a lock of hair around his finger. “I think there’s been some mistake,” he says, with a bright, sunny smile that could probably melt polar icecaps. “I shouldn’t be here…”

Makoto recognises him now. He’s in the year below them. Hazuki Nagisa, the school sweetheart.

Principal Yamada ignores Hazuki and continues to talk. “It is now…” He glances up at the clock on the wall. “Seven-oh-six. You have exactly eight hours and fifty-four minutes to think about why you’re here. To ponder the error of your ways. And we’re going to try something different today. Each of you has to write an essay of no less than a thousand words, describing to me who you think you are.”

Hazuki’s sat back down now, a small pout on his cupid-bow lips. Makoto stares dumbly at Principal Yamada. He doesn’t even know how to write a hundred words about something like _that_ , much less a thousand.

Suddenly, Makoto hears a brash, insolent voice from the back of the room. “Is this a test?”

Principal Yamada starts passing out paper and pencils. He takes no notice of Matsuoka. “And when I say an essay…” he adds, to the room in general, “I mean an _essay_. I do not mean a single word repeated a thousand times. Do I make myself clear, Matsuoka?”

Matsuoka’s response is dripping so hard with sarcasm you could lick it right off his words. “Crystal clear, _Principal_.”

Principal Yamada looks around at the rest of them. “Maybe you’ll learn a bit more about yourselves through this exercise. Maybe you’ll even decide whether or not you care to return.”

The bespectacled guy in the front row with the blue hair raises his hand and stands. He pushes up his glasses. “Sir, I can answer that right away, it’s a no for me - ”

The principal turns to him, frowning. “Sit down, Ryugazaki.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” says the boy - Ryugazaki - and sits. His shirt is perfectly tucked into his pants, and his spotless black shoes are so shiny he could probably see his reflection in them if he looked down. Makoto wonders idly how someone like that wound up in detention.

“My office is right across the hall, so any monkey business is ill advised.” He doesn’t tack on the _Matsuoka_ at the end of his sentence, but Makoto can hear it anyway. “Do not talk or move from these seats till four o’clock, or you’ll get another detention.”

Principal Yamada turns and leaves. It’s just the five of them, now. A sudden, awkward silence falls over the room.

It’s broken by - who else? - Matsuoka, who crumples up his paper loudly and throws it into the air, aimlessly. It bounces off Haru’s desk with a soft thud before dropping to the ground.

“Hey,” Makoto whirls around in his chair to face Matsuoka. “Cut that out. You could have hit someone with that.”

Haru doesn’t look in the least bit bothered. He picks up the ball of paper from the ground, unfolds it, picks up his pencil and starts sketching something. He doesn’t look at Matsuoka at all.

“Uh oh, someone’s gonna be in trouble,” whispers Matsuoka in a lazy drawl. “We’re not allowed to talk, golden-boy Tachibana.”

Makoto frowns a little. He and Matsuoka have never spoken to each other. Makoto knows Matsuoka only by reputation, and by that token, he doesn’t particularly wish to get to know him any better.

“Ehhh, really?” Hazuki’s eyes grow wide as he stares at Makoto. “ _Tachibana Makoto?_ The swimmer? Hey hey, how did _you_ get into detention?”

“Um,” says Makoto. He really, really, doesn’t want to answer, and he’s saved by Ryugazaki, whose head whips round from the front row.

“Shhh!” he hisses at Hazuki softly. “Principal Yamada will hear!”

“This no talking rule is silly,” retorts Hazuki, his musical, high-pitched voice seeming to reach all the way to the ceiling and echo round the room. Makoto looks to the doorway, wondering if the principal will show up.

“Be quiet!” snaps Ryugazaki.

Makoto leans over, peering at his paper. “Amazing… Ryugazaki-kun, was it?” he says, pleasantly. “You’ve already written a paragraph.”

“Rei-chan is the smartest guy in our grade!” trills Hazuki, throwing an angelic grin in Ryugazaki’s direction.

Ryugazaki turns bright red. He doesn’t turn around.

“ _Rei-chan_?” Matsuoka barks out a laugh. It’s short and derisive.

Haru speaks up then, so softly and so suddenly, Makoto’s not sure anyone other than him heard it. “Coming from a guy called Rin.”

Matsuoka makes a low, impatient noise from the back of the room. _Oh_ , thinks Makoto. _He heard it._

“It’s okay, Rei-chan! Everyone here has a girly name too!” Hazuki beams at Ryugazaki, who mumbles something so quietly that Makoto can’t hear him.

Hazuki gets up and goes over. “Did you say something, Rei-chan?”

Ryugazaki doesn’t look at him. He’s still staring straight at the paper on his table, the pencil clenched in his hand so tight that Makoto thinks it might break. “I said, stop talking!”

Hazuki pauses, backs off a little, hesitates. “Rei-chan…”

“Stop talking or we’ll get into trouble!” says Ryugazaki, his voice an angry whisper now. “And stop talking to me! Stop calling me _Rei-chan_! You don’t even know me! We’ve never spoken to each other in our _lives_!”

Makoto stares in surprise. Hazuki’s been acting like he and Ryugazaki are best friends. But then, thinks Makoto, Hazuki’s probably the kind of person who’s like that with everyone.

Hazuki just stands there, his huge eyes shimmering. Makoto wonders if he’ll start crying. Next to him, he sees Haru’s gaze flicker upwards slightly and linger on the two of them for a moment before looking back down to his sketch again.

Even Matsuoka’s gone quiet. Makoto turns to glance at him, unnerved by the silence from the back of the room. He’s holding a lighter in his hand, and flicking it on and off idly as he looks on at Ryugazaki and Hazuki. He catches Makoto’s gaze, and grins cockily, showing a row of sharp teeth.

Makoto narrows his eyes at him then turns back, just in time to see Hazuki throw his arms around Ryugazaki, knocking the pencil out of his hand.

Makoto can feel himself gaping a little. _Hazuki. I underestimated you._

“Well, I’m talking to you now, Rei-chan, so we’re friends! And you should call me Nagisa!” says Hazuki into Ryugazaki’s shoulder, beaming as he hugs the other boy, who is frozen and red as a stop sign.

“ _Please,_ just, please… get out of my personal space,” Ryugazaki manages to choke out, looking like he wants to die. He seems torn between pushing Hazuki away and not actually wanting to lay hands on the other boy.

From the back of the room, Matsuoka sniggers. “What are you so scared of, nerd? Having your first kiss stolen or something?”

Ryugazaki stiffens. He wrenches himself out of Hazuki’s grasp, and turns around.

Hazuki’s back is to the rest of the room, so Makoto can't see his face. He’s looking at Ryugazaki, who’s frozen in place, staring silently at the door. Makoto wonders if they’re both okay - if Matsuoka’s already managed to piss off half the room in the space of ten minutes - but just as he’s about to speak up and ask, Hazuki surprises him once again, spinning on his heel to flash Matsuoka a bright, cheerful, deceptively innocent grin.

“Why, Rinrin? Are you jealous? Would you like to be kissed?” says Hazuki, as he sidles over coyly.

It’s too much. Makoto can’t help but let out a small laugh. Hazuki turns to him, and gives him an outrageous wink.

Makoto hears a scraping sound from the back of the room. He turns around to see Matsuoka pushing back his chair. He’s drawn himself up now to his full height, which is considerably taller than Hazuki’s, and his hands are in his pockets. His head is down as he advances one step towards the front of the room. Two steps.

 _Oh crap_ , thinks Makoto. He steadies himself, preparing to leap from his chair and rescue Hazuki from an untimely death.

“Don’t call me that, you little shit,” Matsuoka says to Hazuki, his voice low and strangely expressionless.

But Hazuki is either the most fearless or the most incredibly stupid person Makoto has ever met - possibly both - and seems to be completely unfazed. “Then, Rin-chan?” he says, his smile widening as the corners of his eyes crinkle. He doesn’t back down, looking up at Matsuoka steadily.

Makoto sees Haru’s shoulders shaking a little. There’s no sound, but he knows that even Haru’s laughing. In the front row, Ryugazaki’s still frozen where he is, fixing his gaze down on his desk where he’s studiously scribbling away, but Makoto has no doubt he’s listening in to every word of this exchange.

Surely Hazuki’s pushed his luck too far. Makoto stands up then, ready to intercept the inevitable punch that’s coming towards Hazuki’s pretty, angelic face.

To his surprise, however, Matsuoka doesn’t move.

His hands stay in their pockets. His head comes up so they can see his eyes, but he doesn’t look directly at them, instead turning to gaze out of the window stiffly. He looks irritated as hell and his lips are drawn into a thin line. But he doesn’t come any closer. He doesn’t say anything, either, merely spits out an annoyed _tch_ from between his teeth.

Makoto watches him, curious. He seems like a coiled spring, holding something back, retreating into a shell of barbed wire and spines.

Makoto doesn’t sit down just yet. But he relaxes just a little, leaning against his desk as he continues to eye Matsuoka warily.

“Rin-chan it is, then!” says Hazuki brightly.

Matsuoka’s eyes flick round to glare at Hazuki. “Do whatever you like,” he mutters. “I don’t care.”

“Then Tachibana-senpai, you’re going to be Mako-chan, okay?”

“Huh? _What?_ ” asks Makoto, incredulously.

“Ah, sorry, I’m so rude, I never introduced myself and I’m already calling you _Mako-chan_! I’m Nagisa! Hazuki Nagisa, second year!”

Makoto laughs. “I know who you are.”

“You do?” Hazuki’s eyes go wide.

“And you seem to know who I am, so…” Makoto glances over at Haru. “This is Nanase Haruka.”

“Haru-chan, then!”

Makoto sees Haru twitch in the middle of his sketch, ever so slightly, his pencil sliding carelessly over the paper like a skipped track on a vinyl disc. He wonders if Haru can be bothered to protest.

The answer is apparently _no_ , because Haru continues drawing without a word, after the briefest of pauses.

Hazuki beams round the room. “And everybody should call me Nagisa! Or Nagi-chan, I guess, if you want?”

Just then, the heavy tread of footsteps sounds from outside the open classroom door, and Principal Yamada’s figure fills the doorway.

“What did I say about _no talking_ and _staying in your seats_? Tachibana! Hazuki! Matsuoka!” he barks.

Makoto slips back into his chair in a hurry. Hazuki takes his time, flashing Principal Yamada his sweetest, most apologetic smile. But Matsuoka remains standing, stubborn and silent, fixing the principal with a death glare.

“Go back to your seat, Matsuoka,” says the principal. “Now.”

Matsuoka flips him the finger, and turns his back on him.

Principal Yamada frowns at Matsuoka. He casts a stern glance around the room, and stands in the doorway with his arms crossed for a few more seconds before turning to leave.

Makoto stares down at his still empty paper.

He wonders how he’s going to get through the rest of this Saturday. He wonders what he’s going to write. But most of all, he wonders what Matsuoka’s problem is.


	2. 8.45am - butterflies and beauty

**8.45am**

This detention feels like an interminable eternity. Makoto could swear that every time he looks up at the clock, it hasn’t moved at all.

He’s tried to start his essay countless times and crossed out every single word. Hazuki’s now staring into space, sucking on a lollipop while twirling his blond hair round his finger. His paper remains pristinely untouched. Matsuoka’s glowering at the back of the room.

“I’m bored. This blows,” announces Matsuoka, to no one in particular.

Hazuki doesn’t miss a beat. “What blows, Rin-chan? You? I’d… mmm… like to see that.”

He gives his lollipop a suggestive lick before taking it fully into his mouth. His lips are stained, cherry red.

Matsuoka sputters, and chokes on his words.

Out of the corner of his eye, Makoto see Ryugazaki turning to stare at Hazuki, mouth slightly agape. He smiles to himself, a little. Ryugazaki himself probably doesn’t know it yet, but Makoto would bet good money that by the end of this afternoon, probably even earlier, Hazuki will have him eating out the palm of his hand. He’s somewhere down the road to _far gone_ already, past _utterly horrified_ , hovering between the signposts of _morbidly curious_ and _strangely tempted_.

Makoto glances over at Haru, who’s been bent over his papers the whole time, silently moving his pencil.

“Haru,” Makoto whispers. “Are you writing?”

In reply, Haru turns to him and raises his paper. There’s a caricature sketch of Hazuki on it, with a speech bubble that says _“Rinrin!”_ coming out of his mouth, and a bug-eyed little Matsuoka off to the side, glaring at him. Hazuki’s eyes are sparkling and exaggerated, and he’s wearing a tiara.

Makoto can’t help the laugh that escapes his lips. Haru smiles.

“Oi, you two. What’s so funny? It’s selfish not to share good shit.” Matsuoka interrupts, walking over towards Haru.

Makoto moves to grab the paper from Haru’s hand and tear it up before Matsuoka can see what he’s drawn, but Haru, utterly unperturbed, simply hands it to him, his expression unchanging.

“Haru!” Makoto cries, panicked. “Ah, Matsuoka, erm…”

“The _hell_?” Matsuoka stares down at the paper, his eyes narrowing.

“Oooh, what’s going on?” Hazuki bounces over and peers at the paper in Matsuoka’s hand. His eyes go wide, then he doubles over laughing. “This is amazing! You’re amazing, Haru-chan!”

Matsuoka’s mouth is hanging slightly open. Hazuki grabs the paper out of his hand. “I’m going to keep this and _frame_ it!”

“I’ll draw another one for you then, Matsuoka,” murmurs Haru.

Makoto steels himself, but before Matsuoka can bite Haru’s head off, Hazuki jumps in. “Oooh, can you draw one of Rin-chan topless, like in swimming trunks?”

“Sure,” says Haru, matter-of-factly, “if Matsuoka takes off his shirt. Can’t draw accurately otherwise.”

“What the fuck, Hazuki?” says Matsuoka. “Wait - what the fuck, Nanase?”

“Na-gi-sa.” Hazuki drawls out the syllables of his name, smiling sweetly at Matsuoka. “Call me Nagisa!”

“I’ll call you whatever I want to, you little piece of - ”

From the front of the room, Ryugazaki coughs, uncomfortably. “Could you all keep it down, please?” he hisses, just loud enough for the others to hear.

“Oh, Rei-chan’s feeling left out!” says Hazuki. “Haru-chan, draw him too!”

“Already did.” Haru reaches to the bottom of his stack of paper and pulls out another drawing.

“Ah! Amazing! Let me see!”

Haru smooths out the paper and hands it to Hazuki.

“Oooh! What’s this - _oh_.”

Makoto glances up from the few words he’d started to write. There’s a distinct change in Hazuki’s tone of voice. It’s lower now, gentle, caught off-guard. He suddenly sounds like someone else altogether, as he stares down at the sketch Haru just gave him, lips slightly parted in a small _o_ of surprise.

“Wow. Wow, Haru-chan. It’s… it’s beautiful.”

Ryugazaki gives a small, visible start at that. He’s sitting up, ramrod straight, as if he’s trying very, very hard not to turn around and rise to Hazuki’s bait.

“Rei-chan. You have to see this,” says Hazuki. His voice is hushed.

Makoto looks at questioningly at Haru. _What did you draw?_

Haru just shrugs. He looks perplexed. _I don’t know what he’s going on about._

Even Matsuoka’s eyeing the back of the paper with something approaching interest, leaking out in brief glimpses behind his affected insouciance.

Makoto stands up and goes round to stand next to Hazuki. He looks down at the paper in his hand. Haru’s drawn Ryugazaki bent over at his desk, hair falling over his forehead, one hand pushing up his glasses. There’s nothing special about that. But -

The backdrop of the drawing fades gradually, from the classroom in the forefront, into a wide open, sprawling field in the background. There’s a cherry blossom tree with falling petals, and the sun’s rays shining through its leaves, shaded in that peculiarly recognisable way Haru always uses in his sketches. Behind Ryugazaki is a dancing swirl of butterflies. One of them is floating near his ear, crossing into the classroom.

Makoto looks at Haru, surprised. Haru gives a small, nonchalant shrug again, like he doesn’t really understand what the big deal is.

“Ryugazaki-kun, this is a really good drawing of you,” says Makoto. “You should see it.”

Makoto’s words seem to give Ryugazaki the push he needs, since he’s apparently determined to ignore anything Hazuki says, as long as his willpower can hold out. He gets up, slowly, and walks over towards them, that wary look still on his face.

Hazuki holds out the paper to him, face up, and he freezes. He can’t stop staring at the drawing. He doesn’t even reach out to take it.

“Let’s see this masterpiece of yours then, Nanase,” says Matsuoka, leaning over to yank the paper out of Hazuki’s hand.

“Gently, Rin-chan! You’ll tear it!” admonishes Hazuki.

“Huh,” says Matsuoka, looking down at the drawing. The fact that he doesn’t have a snide remark to make speaks more, thinks Makoto, than any words he could have said in that moment.

“Nanase-senpai,” says Ryugazaki, quietly. Makoto turns to look at him. It’s the first thing he’s said all morning that isn’t telling them off for talking, or losing it at Hazuki for just about everything.

“Mmm?” Haru’s already picked up his pencil again.

“It’s… it’s really beautiful.”

“It’s just a drawing,” says Haru.

“Can I - can I keep it?”

“Sure. If you can get it back from Matsuoka.”

“What? Like I’d want to keep it.” Matsuoka throws the paper back at them. It lands on the floor, and Ryugazaki swoops down on it, picking it up and looking at it with something approaching reverence.

“But why did you draw Rei-chan in a field?” asks Hazuki.

“It felt right,” says Haru, laconic and cryptic as always.

But Hazuki’s already two steps ahead of Haru. “Ah, I know! It’s because Rei-chan’s in the track and field team!”

Ryugazaki sputters. “How do you know that?”

“I didn’t know that,” murmurs Haru.

Makoto studies Ryugazaki with greater interest now. Now that Hazuki’s mentioned it, he can see the signs - the well-defined musculature in his forearms, the effortlessly perfect posture with which he holds himself, the solidly built shoulders filling his shirt.

Something involving his upper body, thinks Makoto. “Pole vault?” he ventures a guess.

“Ah, yes,” says Ryugazaki. He looks embarrassed.

 _Who would’ve thought_ , thinks Makoto. He feels a little ashamed of himself for assuming Ryugazaki was just a brain and nothing more.

“But why _butterflies_ , Haru-chan?” asks Hazuki, pursing his lips in puzzlement.

Haru looks at Makoto, narrowing his eyes slightly. _This kid is too much. Deal with him for me._

“Like he said,” Makoto says, smiling at Hazuki. “It felt right.”

“Ehhh? That’s not an answer!”

“I think butterflies are beautiful,” says Ryugazaki, shyly. “Thank you, Nanase-senpai.”

Makoto glances down at Haru. He’s already lost interest in the conversation and has moved on to his next drawing. “You’re welcome,” says Makoto, on Haru’s behalf.

“What is this?” Matsuoka interjects. “Do you guys _always_ do this weird mind-reading shit?”

Makoto sighs. He doesn’t bother to answer.

“Yes,” says Haru, under his breath. Makoto doesn’t think Matsuoka can hear it. But Hazuki and Ryugazaki, standing closer to them, do.

“You’re really close, aren’t you? Haru-chan? Mako-chan?” Hazuki asks, at the same time as Ryugazaki says, “It’s very beautiful to see.”

Makoto smiles. “We live almost next door to each other. I think our parents have baby pictures of us together, right, Haru?”

Haru nods wordlessly.

“We used to go to the same swimming club, too,” says Makoto. “But Haru decided he didn’t like competitive swimming.”

“I only swim free,” Haru murmurs.

“Haru likes being in the water,” Makoto clarifies. “But he doesn’t really care about timings and winning and stuff like that.”

“How lame,” mutters Matsuoka.

Makoto resolves to ignore him. “What about you, Ryugazaki-kun? How did you get started with pole vault?”

Something in Ryugazaki’s walled-off, reserved expression seems to change when Makoto brings this up. His eyes soften behind his glasses, and something that might even be called a smile starts to leak out around the corners of his lips.

“I started as a runner,” says Ryugazaki. “I took part in the 400m. Then I switched to hurdles in the middle of first year.”

He’s definitely smiling, now.

“I _loved_ the technique in hurdling. The way you have to calculate your velocity, the precise timing of your jump, the way you land…”

He pauses. His gaze is getting that starry-eyed sheen, one that Makoto recognises with a start. It’s the same look that comes across Haru’s face when you start talking to him about water.

Next to Ryugazaki, Hazuki is staring up at him, rapt with attention.

Makoto notices a small movement from behind them. He tilts his head, ever so slightly, to see Matsuoka looking on, watching in silence.

Ryugazaki’s speaking again. “But our trainer suggested I try pole vault instead. He said I had better muscle structure in my upper body than my lower body, and that my shoulders were good for this kind of thing.”

“Rei-chan does have _very_ nice shoulders and arms,” Hazuki breathes.

Ryugazaki turns bright red again. Makoto stifles a giggle.

“A-anyway, so I tried it. And it was even more beautiful than the hurdles. The arc that the vaulter’s body makes in the air…”

Makoto can see it in his mind, from the way Ryugazaki’s voice lifts in eagerness, rising high, then dropping low and drifting off into the autumn breeze that’s floating through the windows.

“Wow, Rei-chan,” says Hazuki, in awe.

Ryugazaki seems to snap out of a reverie. The shutters come down over his eyes again, and he reaches to push his glasses up his nose, which, Makoto’s starting to realise, is the defense he defaults to when he can’t find anything else to do.

“Well, it’s just pole vault. Studies are much more important.”

Ryugazaki says the words, but Makoto can tell that he doesn’t really, truly believe them for a second. Does Ryugazaki himself realise this? Makoto doesn’t know.

“Much, much more,” Ryugazaki’s muttering now, like he’s trying to convince himself. “I have to do well. I have to - I have to - ”

“Rei-chan,” says Hazuki, quietly. He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t even, to Makoto’s surprise, try to invade Ryugazaki’s space with another one of those tackling hugs. He simply sits, and watches the other boy, with a tenderness that envelopes only the two of them.

Makoto looks down at Haru, who’s actually put down his pencil to observe the unfolding scene.

Ryugazaki takes a deep, shuddering, gasping breath. “I’m sorry. I - we should get back to this essay.”

He turns and walks back to his desk at the front of the room, stiffly. One of his hands is clenched tight into a white, trembling fist.

But in the other, Makoto notices, he’s still holding that picture Haru drew of him, fingers handling it as gently as a loving caress.


	3. 10.22am - did you rob a candy store?

**10.22am**

A soft voice pipes up from beside Makoto. “Hey, Mako-chan?”

Makoto looks to his right to see a mop of messy blond hair hovering near his desk.

After Ryugazaki’s minor freakout, Hazuki seems to have decided, with unexpected wisdom, to leave him alone for a while. Unfortunately, this means he’s had to look for other distractions, and considering the other options in the room, Makoto is not surprised that he’s next on the list.

Sighing inwardly, Makoto puts down his pencil. It’s like dealing with his siblings: he figures the badgering won’t stop till he entertains the younger boy, so he might as well get it over and done with. “Yes, Hazuki-kun?”

“Nagisa!” The little admonition comes almost automatically to Hazuki’s lips. “I was just wondering…”

Makoto braces himself for whatever randomness is about to come out of Hazuki's mouth. He notices Haru stir at the next desk, tilting his head just slightly upwards to observe, not saying anything.

“…what’s it like to be a swimmer?”

Makoto blinks. Once again, Hazuki’s surprised him.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, how does it _feel_? You must really love the water to spend so much time in it, right?”

Does he? How does it _feel_? Makoto’s first instinct is that that doesn’t sound like a question for him. When it comes to water and feelings, there’s only one person to turn to.

He casts Haru a glance. Haru stares back at him, expressionless. _I’m not getting involved with such an asinine conversation._

“It feels, um… nice?” Makoto ventures.

“Have you _always_ been a swimmer?”

“Actually…” Makoto starts, then pauses. He can feel Haru’s gaze on him, but more importantly, he can feel Matsuoka’s from the back of the room, and he isn’t sure he wants to go into the whole story of being scared of the ocean, here and now.

Hazuki’s perched himself on the desk on Makoto’s other side, wide, inquisitive eyes boring into him.

“I - well - ”

“Since elementary school,” Haru cuts in, answering for Makoto.

Hazuki looks over at Haru, and smiles. “I see.”

What exactly Hazuki sees, Makoto isn’t sure, but he feels a pang of guilt at Haru trying to protect him yet again.

“Ah, it’s nice to have something you’re good at,” says Hazuki, a wistful note creeping into his voice. “Mako-chan has swimming, Haru-chan has art, and Rei-chan has studies and pole vault… I wish I had a talent too.”

“Hey,” Matsuoka’s voice rings out suddenly, blunt and accusing. “You left me out in that list of yours. You saying I suck at everything?”

Makoto turns around in surprise. Matsuoka’s leaning against the wall, next to a window, shooting Hazuki a pointed glare. He’s taken off his jacket, and toned arms show beneath the sleeves of his rumpled school shirt.

Makoto thinks fleetingly, looking at Matsuoka’s lithe, lean body like this, that he’s obviously someone who works out. Yet he isn’t in any sports club. Or any club at all, as far as Makoto knows, unless detention can be considered a club activity.

In fact, Matsuoka’s past is really something of a mystery to the entire student body. All that’s known for sure is that he transferred from Samezuka Academy at the beginning of third year, and he’s an A-class asshole to teachers.

Rumours about Matsuoka are more plentiful in school than chocolate on Valentine’s Day.

_”I heard he was arrested before!”_

_”I heard he beat up a police officer…”_

_”I heard he sells drugs in the school backyard.”_

_”I heard his family is, like, really messed up. Single parent, you know…”_

_”I heard he stole a car once and drove it into his old school building!”_

_”I heard he’s the head of a biker gang.”_

Makoto doesn’t know which of the rumours are true, if any, but each is more outrageous than the last, and Matsuoka has never said or done anything to refute any of them.

Matsuoka catches Makoto’s gaze. Makoto looks away in a hurry.

“Oh! Rin-chan, I’m sorry!” Hazuki seems totally unfazed. “It’s okay, I’m not really good at anything either!”

“Don’t lump me in with you,” snaps Matsuoka.

“Then what _are_ you good at?” asks Haru, turning round in his chair to fix Matsuoka with that piercing blue gaze.

Makoto winces. Matsuoka had been asking for it, really, but busting out the question like that is something that perhaps only Haru can get away with. Makoto knows he wouldn’t have been able to do it.

Matsuoka laughs, unexpectedly. It’s a bitter, short laugh. “Nothing. I’m just a useless fuckup. You heard the squirt, right?”

Haru makes an impatient noise as he turns back. “If you want to admit you’re good at nothing, don’t complain when other people say it too.”

Makoto stares at Haru for a split second, then softens into a smile.

Hazuki’s eyes have gone even wider, something Makoto hadn’t thought was possible, and Ryugazaki, he notices, has inched his chair round just a little towards them, sneaking glances back.

Haru glances over at Makoto, a little belatedly. His gaze is quizzical. _Did I say something wrong?_

Makoto gives the slightest shake of his head. _No. Not at all, Haru._ It’s just like him, to see straight to the heart of things, and go for the truth like a homing arrow.

Matsuoka, for once, seems at a loss for words. His mouth is open, as if ready to deliver the typical wisecrack in response, but it never comes.

“Wow, Haru-chan,” says Hazuki. “That’s _deep_.”

“Is it?”

“That was… very logical.”

Makoto turns to the front of the room in surprise at hearing Ryugazaki’s voice, quiet as it is.

Haru doesn’t respond. He holds Ryugazaki’s gaze steady for a split second, then resumes staring out of the window at nothing in particular, twirling his pencil slowly in his right hand.

With everyone in the room staring at Haru, Makoto’s eyes flicker over to Matsuoka again. He’s biting down on his lower lip, and the expression on his face is unreadable, but it’s raw, and surprisingly open, and full of some kind of emotion that Makoto can’t quite label as anything other than _pain_ , but that’s not quite right either. It’s pain, but pain laced with sadness, and something more.

Makoto’s suddenly reminded of his fear of the water, when he looks at Matsuoka; that sense he can’t shake that there’s a mysterious darkness lurking deep beneath the surface.

 _What’s your story, Matsuoka?_ he wonders again. _Why are you so pissed off at the world all the time?_

Makoto’s starting to feel almost uncomfortable catching Matsuoka unguarded like this, so he looks away, back towards Hazuki. “I think everyone is good at something,” he says, smiling. “What about you, Hazuki-kun?”

“Geez, call me Nagisa already!” whines Hazuki. “Well, um. I really don’t know, I’m really bad at my studies, and my parents are always forcing me to go to tuition and cram schools.”

His voice is light, but dips a little towards the end, and Makoto doesn’t miss the way it catches in his throat.

Ryugazaki’s paying attention now. He’s gazing at Hazuki thoughtfully, but doesn’t say anything.

“We can’t all be good at studies,” says Makoto, in his most reassuring tone. “I’m not that great either…”

“Makoto’s math is the worst and his English is _terrible_ ,” Haru says, looking up at Hazuki. “He can’t even sound the words properly at karaoke.”

Matsuoka lets out an undignified snort, from the back of the room. _Well, seems like he’s okay now_ , thinks Makoto.

“You sing, Tachibana?”

“Everyone sings karaoke!” Makoto defends himself.

“Makoto has the voice of a rock god,” Haru interjects calmly, as though he were stating a fact that should be obvious to everyone, like _the water is blue_.

Makoto can feel the blush spreading across his face. “ _Haru!_ ”

Hazuki’s eyes seem to bulge. “Mako-chan. Sing. Now,” he orders, at the same time that Ryugazaki exclaims softly, “Really, Tachibana-senpai?”, and Matsuoka mutters, “You have to be kidding me.”

“No, thank you,” says Makoto firmly, trying to shoot Haru his most pointed glare, the _onii-chan is not pleased_ glare that he uses with Ran and Ren when they’re in serious trouble. But with Haru, it fails, as usual, because he simply shrugs it off like water rolling down his back.

“Awww, come on, I’ll sing backup for you - ” Hazuki cajoles, with his most winning smile.

“No!” Makoto repeats. “Absolutely not!”

“Stop bugging Tachibana-senpai,” Ryugazaki hisses, keeping his voice low.

Makoto looks over at Ryugazaki in surprise. “Thanks, Ryuga - ”

“Singing is loud. It _carries_. We’re supposed to be keeping quiet, remember? We’ll get into so much trouble if Principal Yamada hears us!”

Makoto nearly faceplants onto his desk. _Ryugazaki’s priorities, huh._ He should have guessed. Well, if it’s going to save him from being forced to belt out some acappella rock song to this increasingly strange bunch of guys on a Saturday morning, he’ll take it.

“Newsflash, nerd,” says Matsuoka flatly. “You’re in detention. You’re _already_ in trouble. Welcome to the club. Congrats on popping your cherry.”

Ryugazaki glares at Matsuoka. “I am _not_ \- ”

“Now, now, Rin-chan, that’s not nice,” says Hazuki, sweetly. “How do you know Rei-chan’s cherry isn’t already popped?”

His voice is nothing but sunshine and earnestness, which makes the words coming out of his mouth even more ridiculous.

Ryugazaki sputters, chokes, stares at Hazuki and pushes his glasses up his nose. “W-what exactly are we talking about now?”

“Cherries,” says Hazuki, with an innocent grin. Ryugazaki turns as red as one.

Makoto laughs. “Hazuki-kun, that’s what you’re good at.”

“Eh?”

Hazuki’s head snaps round. He’s so surprised he doesn’t even tell Makoto to call him Nagisa.

“You make people smile when things are tense.”

Hazuki screws up his face, thinking. “Rei-chan’s not smiling.”

“He’s smiling on the inside,” Haru murmurs, and Makoto can’t help laughing again.

“ _Is_ he, Haru-chan?”

“See? You get away with calling Haru _Haru-chan_ without him getting mad at you,” Makoto points out. “Even I can’t do that.”

“It’s because I’m so charming and lovable,” Hazuki says brightly.

“There you go. That’s what your talent is.”

“That’s no use!” whines Hazuki. “It’s not a _real_ talent, like your swimming, or Rei-chan’s brains!”

“Being good with people _is_ a talent,” says Haru, almost to himself.

Makoto glances down at him. He’s doodling idly now, drawing odd bits of ocean scenery on a blank corner of his paper, hand moving almost of its own will. Makoto watches as a wave comes to life, crashing down on the shore with a stroke of Haru’s pencil.

 _It’s a talent I don’t have_ , Makoto can see Haru thinking. But Haru’s never been particularly bothered by it.

Makoto looks up, towards the back of the room. Matsuoka, on the other hand -

“Don’t flatter this one, Tachibana.” Matsuoka says. “His real talent is being a totally shameless little shit.”

“Rin-chan! You’re so mean!” Hazuki wails.

Is that a _smile_ leaking out from Matsuoka’s lips?

Makoto blinks, and when he opens his eyes again, whatever it was - smile or not - is gone. Matsuoka’s face is back to its usual expression of something between boredom and irritation.

“Ah, maybe you’re right,” says Hazuki, with an easy grin. “But Mako-chan is also right, everyone is good at something, so you must be too, Rin-chan!”

Matsuoka glares at Hazuki. “I’m good at fucking things up,” he mutters.

“Oh, I have that talent too,” says Hazuki, totally unfazed.

“Don’t mess around. You can’t be as much of a fuckup as I am,” Matsuoka says bitterly.

“You might be surprised, Matsuoka-senpai.”

Ryugazaki’s low voice startles all of them. Makoto’s head whips round towards the blue-haired boy.

Ryugazaki is facing Matsuoka straight on, a surprisingly intense gaze behind his glasses. His brows are furrowed, and when he speaks again his words seems to echo all around, even though his voice is quiet.

“There are many ways to be a fuckup,” says Ryugazaki.

Pin-drop silence fills the room. Makoto can hear the sound of his own breathing, uncomfortably loud in his ears.

Ryugazaki has hit the nail on the head, and they all know it. What he hasn’t said hangs heavy in the air between the five of them. Driven on mostly by the irrepressible Hazuki, they’ve pretended for over three hours to get along and be somewhat companionable, but ultimately, they’re all just trapped here by circumstance, locked in detention on this Saturday morning because -

Because each of them has fucked up _something_.

Whatever it is.

And no one knows each other’s stories at all, aside from himself and Haru.

Makoto shifts uncomfortably in his seat, and doesn’t meet anyone’s gaze, staring at the floor. He’s surprised when Haru’s the one to break the awkward impasse, a second later.

“It’s okay to be a fuckup, isn’t it?”

Makoto looks up.

Haru has put his pencil down, contemplating the blank paper on his desk. He doesn’t elaborate any further.

Hazuki pipes up then. “Haru-chan’s right. If everyone’s a fuckup, it’s okay to be one!”

“What kind of stupid warped logic is that?” Matsuoka mumbles, but Makoto can tell his heart isn’t in it.

“Just be yourself,” Haru says quietly, more to Makoto than anyone else.

Ryugazaki coughs. “As Matsuoka-senpai said, it’s not very _logical_ , but…”

“It’s okay, huh?” Makoto murmurs, under his breath.

In the silence that falls again, they can hear the sound of the wind outside, rustling the autumn leaves. Makoto glances out the window, watching the swirl of brown and red at the foot of the tree in the school courtyard.

“I’ll tell you all why I’m here,” says Hazuki, suddenly.

Makoto whirls towards him in alarm.

Hazuki seems to have guessed what’s on his mind. “It’s okay. You all don’t have to tell me why _you’re_ here. But I want to share.”

“Y-you don’t have to…” Ryugazaki manages to choke out.

“It’s no big deal,” says Hazuki, smiling. “I’m here for skipping school.”

“Is that all? I play hooky all the time.” Matsuoka scoffs.

“For almost two weeks,” Hazuki continues, serenely.

“Huh.” Matsuoka looks somewhat impressed.

Ryugazaki’s mouth falls open. “You were _skipping school_ during that time? I - uh, we - I mean, everyone in second year - thought you were down with some serious illness…”

“Ah, that’s just what my parents told the school,” says Hazuki. “They can’t have it getting out that their precious baby did something wrong, right?”

His voice is light, but Makoto senses an unexpected hardness underneath.

“So what did you do for two weeks?” Makoto asks, somewhat hesitant.

“I ran away.”

“Y-y-you WHAT?” Ryugazaki sputters.

Hazuki smiles at him. “I packed a bag and took a train to nowhere.”

“Damn,” says Matsuoka. “You’ve got balls. I’ll give you that, smartass.”

“You can’t have spent two weeks wandering around nowhere…” Makoto says.

Hazuki nods. “Yeah. After train-hopping for a while, I went to Kyoto. I have some friends there. In university. I stayed in Kyoto till train station CCTV footage found me.” He laughs. “And that’s why I’m here now.”

Haru stirs. “Why did you run away.”

It’s the obvious question, but again, no one but Haru’s been blunt enough to bring it up, not even Matsuoka. Hazuki sharing with them that he got detention for doing a bunk is one thing; Hazuki’s reason for doing said bunk is quite another, thinks Makoto uneasily.

But Hazuki doesn’t seem bothered. He tilts his head to one side, thoughtfully. “I wonder…”

“What the hell, you ran away and you don’t even know why?” Matsuoka mutters.

“Hmm, it’s more like I don’t know how to put it, but if I had to say it somehow…” Hazuki pauses, briefly, before finishing his sentence. “Because my family is the _worst_.”

“Your family?” Ryugazaki repeats, in disbelief. “But I always see them driving you around, dropping you off at school, your mother kissing you goodbye…”

 _Oh_ , thinks Makoto. _Of course_. He recalls, now.

The Hazukis have something to do with the shipping industry, and they live in a mansion three times the size of his and Haru’s homes combined, on a hill overlooking the Iwatobi port. Hazuki gets sent to school every day in a car that probably costs more than their houses combined, too.

“So what?” Hazuki shrugs. His voice is listless. “We have money. That doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t make my parents stop yelling at me that my grades are bad and I’m good for nothing. It doesn’t make my older sisters stop bullying me.”

Makoto cannot, for the life of him, imagine how anyone could bully Hazuki, but his heart goes out to him, nonetheless, almost instinctively. His big brother instincts kick into overdrive.

“Hazuki-kun,” he says, gently.

“Is that true?” asks Ryugazaki, in a hushed tone. “Do - do your parents really say things like that to you?”

“Like um, when I fail tests and stuff?” says Hazuki. “That seems to happen quite a lot… ah, well, sometimes I think they’re right anyway. My sisters are all top students. I’m the useless one of the family.”

Ryugazaki’s voice brims with unexpected emotion. “I… I didn’t know.”

Hazuki smiles at him. He hasn’t cried a tear, through all of this. “It’s okay. Like you said, Rei-chan, there are many ways to be a fuckup, right? This is mine.”

Ryugazaki’s expression calms, resolves itself, as he gives Hazuki a shaky nod.

“Things got kind of heavy there, huh,” Hazuki says sheepishly, scratching his head. “Sorry, guys. Lollipop, anyone?”

And like Santa Claus, he produces a whole handful of them from a truly capacious pocket somewhere inside his jacket, grinning beatifically round the room.

“The fuck?” says Matsuoka. “Did you rob a candy store on your way to school this morning?”

“Just my sister’s room.” Hazuki turns an angelic smile on him. “Here, Rin-chan, you can have this cola-flavoured one!”

Matsuoka grunts, and to Makoto’s surprise, he takes it. The mood in the room lightens, like storm clouds lifting.

Makoto laughs warmly as he reaches for one too.


	4. 11.55am - take my sorrows

**11.55am**

_Who I think I am._

Makoto has written exactly two words on his paper in five hours. _I swim._

He glances over at Haru, and wonders if he’s planning to submit a stack of drawings in lieu of an essay. There’s a small, growing pile of them stacked messily on one side of his desk. Haru’s now staring out the window next to him, pencil resting on the table, head propped up on his hand.

There’s one piece of paper peeking out from the sheaf, with a single word written in the margin. Makoto leans over to read it, curious.

_Free._

Makoto smiles. That _would_ be Haru’s entire essay.

There’s a sudden sound of a chair being pushed back. “Hey, losers. Let’s split. I need a smoke.”

Matsuoka’s been quiet for such a long time, brooding silently in the back of the classroom as he sucks his cola lollipop, that Makoto gives a small start at hearing his voice.

Something about the atmosphere in the room, between all of them, has changed over the past hour; and Makoto knows Matsuoka feels it too, from the mere fact that he’s now gone so far as to extend an invitation to the rest of them to _split_ along with him.

Hazuki’s fallen asleep at his seat. He gives a small jump, and stirs, groggily. “Rin-chan? Did you say something?”

“I said, let’s blow this joint.”

“I… I don’t think I understand what you’re saying, Matsuoka-senpai,” says Ryugazaki, stammering.

“Yamada hasn’t come to yell at us for, what, a few hours now? So the fat bastard’s probably fallen asleep in his office,” says Matsuoka, ignoring the scandalised yelp from Ryugazaki. “Now’s our chance to get out.”

“You can get out if you want, Matsuoka,” says Makoto. “If we’re not sitting here at four o’clock with a thousand-word essay, we’re going to get handed another detention.”

Matsuoka makes a low, impatient growl, glaring at Makoto. “We don’t have to leave school, dummy. Go somewhere for a bit. Come back by four. Yamada will never know.”

“Rin-chan is right!” says Hazuki, leaping to his feet. Somehow, he’s managed to dial his energy levels from zero to a hundred in the space of less than a minute. “Let’s just get out of this stuffy classroom! I don’t think I can _stand_ another minute in here!”

Ryugazaki’s shaking his head firmly. “No. No, no, no. We’ll get into _so much trouble_.”

“Your loss,” smirks Matsuoka. He looks over at Makoto and Haru, and cocks his eyebrow, challenging them.

Makoto casts Haru a doubtful glance. He _is_ getting cabin fever, and doesn’t mind getting out of this classroom for a while, but the prospect of risking another detention is an unappealing one. More importantly, however, he’s not going anywhere without Haru.

“It’s nearly noon,” says Haru, apropos of nothing, turning to meet Makoto’s gaze. “I didn’t bring lunch.”

“I think my mom packed extra for you. Hang on. Let me check…” Makoto leans down to rifle through his bag.

“That’s so sweet, Mako-chan!” says Hazuki. “Do you _always_ bring bento for Haru-chan?”

It still weirds him out being called Mako-chan, but Hazuki’s the type of person that you just can’t help playing along with. Even Matsuoka, notices Makoto, has stopped looking like he wants to punch Hazuki’s face in for calling him Rin-chan. _He probably thinks it’s better than Rinrin,_ thinks Makoto, remembering the incident earlier.

“Not always. Actually Haru’s a very good cook,” he says, in reply to Hazuki.

“Are you coming or not?” Matsuoka interrupts, impatient. “I’m not going off alone with this little punk.”

“Why, Rin-chan? Don’t you want to spend some _quality time together_?” Hazuki pouts.

“I really don’t,” says Matsuoka, narrowing his eyes at Hazuki.

“Ah, here we go.” Makoto takes a wrapped bundle out of his bag. He hands Haru the blue bento box. That’ll be his, with the extra mackerel inside, and the green one is Makoto’s.

“Thanks. Let’s go.” Haru stands.

“Eh?” says Makoto, looking up at him in surprise.

Haru looks at Matsuoka, expectantly.

“Oh, I’ll bring my lunch too! We can have a picnic!” Hazuki zips back to his table so fast Makoto can almost see the blurry trail he leaves in his wake.

Matsuoka crosses his arms. “I’m bored. I’m moving out. You losers can catch up.” He starts stalking off towards the door.

Makoto exchanges a glance with Haru. _You wanna go?_

Haru gives a small shrug. _Up to you._

Matsuoka pauses briefly to glance out at the corridor, craning his neck towards Principal Yamada’s office. He disappears round the door, sharp and stealthy, like a predator.

“Rei-chan,” calls Hazuki, running over to the front of the room, a yellow bento box in hand, “you have to come with us!”

Ryugazaki shifts uneasily in his seat. “I don’t… I don’t know, Hazuki-kun.”

“Na-gi-sa!” says Hazuki, for the hundredth time. “Come on, it won’t be fun without all five of us!”

Makoto can’t help smiling a little at the way Hazuki somehow, effortlessly, says _all five of us_ like it’s a thing now, when scant hours ago they hadn’t even known each other’s names.

“Hazuki-kun - ”

Hazuki spins on his heel, mouth open, and Makoto knows exactly what he’s going to say.

“Nagisa.”

Their voices overlap, Makoto saying Nagisa’s name at the same time he does, and the younger boy gapes for a while before beaming at him.

“You called me Nagisa! I’m so happy, Mako-chan!”

“Let’s leave Ryugazaki-kun alone if he doesn’t want to come, okay?” says Makoto.

Ryugazaki turns around. Makoto can see how torn he is.

Nagisa looks dejected. “Okay, Rei-chan. But I’d really like you to come.”

He turns those huge, expressive eyes on Ryugazaki, full-on, and Makoto knows in that moment that Ryugazaki has totally lost.

He turns to Haru to hide the little smile on his face. Haru looks faintly amused. He inclines his head towards the door, and takes a step forward.

A voice sounds, then, suddenly.

“Coast is clear. Yamada’s not even in his office. He’s probably gone off for lunch too.”

Makoto turns to the door, surprised. Matsuoka’s reappeared in the doorway, hands in pockets. He jerks his head impatiently towards the corridor, and disappears again.

Makoto moves to follow Haru, who’s already almost all the way to the door. He notices with interest that Ryugazaki is now by Nagisa’s side, holding a purple bento box.

As he takes that step across the threshold, out of the doorway, joining the other four outside the classroom, Makoto can’t shake the feeling that Nagisa’s right. This _is_ something. All five of them.

It makes no sense whatsoever, but there it is.

Matsuoka leads the way, while Makoto brings up the rear. They make their way down the corridor, passing by empty classroom after classroom.

Ryugazaki looks nervous and furtive at every step, and nearly jumps out of his skin when Haru accidentally brushes against a trash bin, the rustling, rattling sound echoing down the deserted hallway.

“Watch it, Nanase,” Matsuoka hisses.

“Sorry,” says Haru, but he’s looking at Makoto.

Makoto smiles, reassuring. _Don’t sweat it._

Haru doesn’t say anything, just nods slightly.

Matsuoka leads them up the stairway at the end of the corridor. “Where are we going, Rin-chan?” whispers Nagisa, his tone hushed and laced with excitement. He’s been like this the whole time, as though this is all some thrilling, nail-biting expedition into the unknown, and not five students escaping from detention in their school building on a perfectly ordinary Saturday morning.

“Roof,” says Matsuoka, shortly. “If I smoke in the building, it’ll set off the fucking alarm.”

“You shouldn’t smoke, Rin-chan,” scolds Nagisa, as Matsuoka pushes the door to the roof open. “It’s bad for you!”

“Shut up,” Matsuoka snaps.

The cool wind outside hits Makoto’s face like a breath of fresh air as he reaches the top of the stairs. Next to him, Haru draws his jacket tighter round himself. As usual, it’s way too thin for autumn.

 _Seriously,_ thinks Makoto, with a sigh.

Over the years, Haru has resolutely resisted all of Makoto’s attempts to make him wear more appropriate warm clothing with an unwavering insistence that any more layers, or thicker layers, would make it more difficult to get his clothes off when there’s water. Makoto’s almost used to wearing extra layers himself, now, so he can force them on Haru when needed.

“Here,” he says, taking off his outermost jacket and passing it to Haru. “Wear this.”

“Don’t need it,” says Haru.

“Just wear it. There’s no water here, so you don’t need to strip.”

Haru considers this for a moment, then takes the jacket from Makoto and puts it on.

“ _Strip_?” Matsuoka repeats, incredulous. “Wait, didn’t you ask me to take my shirt off just now? Is this a _thing_ with you, Nanase? Do you have some kind of bare-chested kink?”

“That was for drawing,” Haru says, in all seriousness. “This is for swimming.”

Makoto looks up at Matsuoka, who’s leaning against the railing at the side of the building, lit cigarette dangling from his fingers, eyeing Haru with a look of bafflement on his face.

Makoto opens his mouth to try and explain, then closes it. He doesn’t even know where to start with the details of Haru’s various quirks.

Haru’s lost interest in Matsuoka now, as he opens his bento box. As promised, it’s got extra mackerel. Makoto’s mother knows Haru almost as well as she knows her own children.

Matsuoka continues to stare at Haru for a while, before turning his gaze away, off into space, taking a long drag from his cigarette.

“Ahhhh, this is nice,” says Nagisa enthusiastically. He’s plonked himself down beside Haru, and is stuffing his face from a lunchbox that appears to consist of nothing but strawberries, chocolate and cream bread.

Ryugazaki glances over at it. He’s holding an immaculate bento of his own, loaded with vegetables and arranged beautifully. “What kind of lunch is that, Ha - ”

“Nagisa, Rei-chan! _Na-gi-sa_!”

Ryugazaki turns red and pushes his glasses up his nose. “N-Nagisa-kun,” he stammers, so quickly Makoto almost misses it.

Nagisa’s eyes widen. It’s clear he hadn’t been expecting that, despite his non-stop heckling. He brightens up so much, Makoto’s almost blinded by the sheer joy radiating off his face.

“It’s the best kind of lunch! All my favourite things!” is Nagisa’s completely ridiculous reply.

Matsuoka snorts.

Makoto looks up at him, noticing something. “Matsuoka. You’re not having lunch?”

“Didn’t bring any,” Matsuoka mutters.

“You should have said.”

“Why, Tachibana? Don’t tell me you have a _third_ bento box sitting in that bag of yours. God, you’re like a housewife.”

Matsuoka’s always doing this, Makoto’s starting to realise. Drawing closer, reaching out, then pulling away, pushing the other person at the same time. It’s almost like he’s, well… _afraid_. Like a wild animal that’s never been tamed.

Get too close, too quickly, and he’s lost, thinks Makoto. But bit by bit - step by step - maybe -

“No,” says Makoto, with a small smile. “I don’t have a third box. But you can share some of mine.”

“Mine too! Mine too!” says Nagisa, bounding to his feet.

“Ugh, I don’t want _your_ lunch.” Matsuoka puts out his cigarette on the ledge, wrinkling his nose with distaste at the strawberry Nagisa’s holding out to him.

Makoto puts another spoonful of rice into his mouth, then passes Matsuoka his bento box. “Here.”

Matsuoka eyes it suspiciously, like he can’t quite believe someone’s giving him something for nothing. “No. I don’t need lunch.”

Makoto wonders how it is that he always finds himself saddled with these people who just don’t want to be helped.

“Matsuoka. It’ll be inconvenient if you faint from hunger here,” Haru murmurs, next to him. “We can’t carry you back.”

“Tachibana could. Have you seen the back muscles on this freak?”

“I’m right here, guys,” says Makoto, chagrined.

Haru carries on as though Matsuoka hadn’t said anything. “Also, Makoto’s mother is a great cook.”

“Join us, Rin-chan! Don’t be the only one not eating!” Nagisa pipes up.

Matsuoka’s silent for a while, gaze flicking from Nagisa to Makoto to Haru and back, then he bends down to take the box from Makoto, still looking at him warily. He doesn’t sit down with the rest of them, remaining on his feet as he pokes at the squid.

“Hey, Mako-chan.”

Makoto turns to Nagisa, who has an extremely worrying glint in his eyes, and a disarming smile on his face that cannot possibly mean anything good.

“Will you sing now?”

“What!” Makoto sputters. “No!”

“We’re not in the classroom now, so no one can hear! Right, Rei-chan?”

Ryugazaki pushes his glasses up. “Logically, Nagisa-kun is correct. This is the optimal time for you to demonstrate your singing prowess.”

“Excuse me, which part of this situation is logical?” Makoto protests. He casts a helpless glance at Haru, who continues eating his mackerel, unmoved.

No help there. Haru was the one who’d got him into this mess anyway, so no surprise. Makoto resolves to revoke his best friend’s mackerel privileges at the Tachibana household for the next two months at least.

“Pleeease, Mako-chan?” Nagisa pleads, eyes wide and hopeful. “I really want to hear you sing.”

“I must admit I am rather curious,” Ryugazaki chimes in.

Makoto sighs.

“Two lines. That’s all,” he says, firmly and sternly, and before he loses all his nerve, he squeezes his eyes shut, opens his mouth and launches into the most recent song he recalls singing at karaoke. Too late, he realises it’s an English song, and braces himself for someone making fun of his bad pronunciation.

 _can you feel my pain right now_  
 _someone’s attitude towards mistakes  
_ _already began to gather dust_

Makoto blinks his eyes open to see three open-mouthed faces staring at him. Haru is still eating his lunch, as he was.

“Go on,” says Nagisa, his voice hushed. “Why’d you stop?”

“Because I said two lines only! And I gave you three!”

“Fuck, Tachibana, how do you sound like that when your speaking voice normally sounds like a mewling kitten?”

Makoto has no idea if Matsuoka is complimenting or insulting him.

“Let’s all get back to lunch and back to the classroom, shall we?” He shoots a pointed look at his bento, in Matsuoka’s hands.

Matsuoka holds it high, beyond his reach, then sets it down on the ledge far away from Makoto. “Nope, _rock god_ , you’re not getting this back till you finish the damn song.”

“I’m with Rin-chan on this,” says Nagisa immediately.

Makoto looks appealingly at Ryugazaki, who, it seems, is the last bastion of sanity in this loony bin, but Ryugazaki just stares at him and says, in an awed voice, “I’ve never heard anyone sing like that before, Tachibana-senpai, that was amazing.”

“I’ll sing with you,” says Haru.

Makoto turns to him gratefully. “Haru!”

Haru puts down his lunch. His gaze meets Makoto’s, and Makoto knows, in that instant, that it’s his oblique way of apologising. Haru doesn’t really get embarrassed in situations like this - or at all, ever - so it’s no big deal for him to sing, but it _is_ awfully troublesome, and Makoto appreciates the effort he’s going to.

Haru starts the next lines of the song, low and quiet. Makoto joins him after the first few words, raising his voice at the chorus.

 _like just singing  
_ _take my sorrows for the sun above_

It’s an appropriate song, Makoto thinks belatedly, for their odd little group here, all of them full of mistakes, regrets and pain.

 _carry the pain inside one  
_ _where do you keep the dusk?_

The words linger in the air, heavy with meaning.

Nagisa’s eyes are shimmering, and Ryugazaki is watching them with his mouth still open, rapt. Makoto’s gaze flicks upwards to Matsuoka, and he’s so surprised he nearly trips over his next lyrics.

There’s a tear on Matsuoka’s cheek.

Matsuoka’s not even looking at him and Haru. He’s staring down at the ground, hands in pockets, his mind clearly somewhere far away.

 _I will burn up if I get too close_  
 _we’re on_  
 _we’re on  
_ _we are..._

Haru fades out before Makoto at the last chorus, leaving Makoto to finish the song on his own.

There’s a hushed silence once it ends.

“Wow,” Nagisa breathes, softly.

Ryugazaki lets out a long, slow breath, saying nothing.

Nagisa’s voice sounds again, then. “What did the song mean? It sounded really nice, but I didn’t understand a lot of it.”

“Um.” Makoto kind of knows what the words in the lyrics mean, since he’s sung this one a few times at karaoke, but he’s not sure he’s the best person to do impromptu English translations.

“Making mistakes,” says Matsuoka, suddenly. Makoto looks up, surprised.

“Carrying the pain inside you. Running away. Flying. It’s pretty damn emo. Actually, the words get kind of nonsensical after a while. But I guess the feeling is there.”

Matsuoka’s gaze is averted as he speaks. He’s facing away, looking up towards the sky, his expression hidden.

“Ehhh? Rin-chan, you’re so smart!” cries Nagisa.

“Matsuoka-senpai is… more or less accurate, I believe,” says Ryugazaki, looking as shocked as Makoto feels.

 _Matsuoka’s good at English?_ Makoto wonders, before the next thought comes unbidden, making him feel guilty the minute he thinks it. _Matsuoka’s good at something school-related?_

Matsuoka seems to have come back to the present, now, as he turns back to them. He’s eyeing Makoto with an odd, guarded expression, holding his bento out to him. “Thanks,” he says.

Makoto is somewhat taken aback. “For what?” he blurts out, as he takes the box back.

“For lunch. And singing.” Matsuoka looks away. His eyes are red, redder than usual, the unmistakable red of recent tears. He seems embarrassed, and Makoto wonders if he’d caught him staring just now.

“Mako-chan, you are _wasted_ in the pool,” Nagisa declares. “You should have joined the glee club.”

Makoto laughs, then sobers. “Sometimes I think that might have been better, too.”

He doesn’t miss the sudden motion of Haru’s head turning, fixing him with a keen, alert gaze.

“Eh? Why?” Nagisa asks curiously. “Don’t you like swimming?”

“I do,” says Makoto. “But being a school athlete, well… there are a lot of pressures, I guess. People expect you to be a – a certain way.”

He pauses. “Sometimes I wish I’d just followed Haru and quit competitive swimming. Maybe just swimming for fun would have been enough for me, too.”

A little too late, Makoto realises that if word of what he’s saying here ever got out, he would be utterly and totally _ruined_. He would never, ever live it down in school. But he looks around, then, at the faces surrounding him, and he knows, somehow, that they all have an unspoken compact:

What happens in detention will stay in detention.

Ryugazaki speaks up, then. “I don’t really get it, Tachibana-senpai…”

Makoto looks at him. He seems troubled.

“I _love_ pole vault. Being able to do it all the time, do more of it, get better at it… that would be a dream come true.”

“Then Rei-chan is in the right club!” Nagisa pipes up.

A shadow falls over Ryugazaki’s face immediately. “Not for much longer.”

“Huh?” asks Makoto.

“I’m… I’m quitting track and field.”

Makoto’s mouth falls open. Nagisa pitches forward, so close to Ryugazaki their faces almost touch. “But _why_ , Rei-chan?” he asks, his voice an anguished wail. “Your pole vault is _beautiful_!”

“Y-you’ve seen my pole vault?” Ryugazaki stammers.

Nagisa nods emphatically. “Sometimes, when I pass by the track after school, I see you guys practising, and Rei-chan’s pole vault _always_ makes me stop and stare!”

“If you love it, why are you quitting.”

Haru’s question comes out more like a demand.

Ryugazaki averts his gaze. He starts mumbling something under his breath, then stops.

Everyone stares at him for an uncomfortably long period of time. Makoto’s just about to tell the others to back down and let Ryugazaki be, when he speaks, suddenly.

“I tore a worksheet in class.”

Makoto gapes, and Matsuoka speaks for him with the incredulous “ _Huh? You?_ ” that escapes his lips.

“Rei-chan… it’s okay, you don’t have to - ” says Nagisa, softly, but Ryugazaki presses on.

“That’s why I’m here. In detention. I lost it in class one day and ripped a piece of homework in front of my homeroom teacher. They decided I was too stressed and I had to quit club activities. That’s all.”

The words seem to come easier to him, now that the floodgate’s opened, but he’s still breathing heavily when he finishes.

“And… _were_ you too stressed?” Makoto ventures to ask.

“I don’t know. Maybe. I love pole vault. I never feel like it makes me stressed. But maybe I really should just concentrate on my studies…”

Ryugazaki’s voice is tense. His body is clenched up, shoulders hunched as he sits in a tight ball, hugging his knees.

“But you’re so smart, Rei-chan…”

Ryugazaki whirls on Nagisa then, with sudden, unexpected ferocity. “So what if I am? Do you know how many years of my life I’ve had people telling me I’m _so smart_? That I’m just a brain, nothing else? Pole vault is the first thing I’ve found where people appreciate me for _more_ than my brain. Everyone expects so much of me in school. Everyone expects me to always ace everything, always be top of the class, and I - just - ”

Ryugazaki buries his head in his hands and stops talking abruptly.

Nagisa falls silent, looking abashed. “I’m sorry,” he says, so quiet that Makoto can barely hear him.

Ryugazaki takes a deep breath, and lets it out, slow and shaky.

“But, Rei-chan…” Nagisa speaks again. Ryugazaki looks up at him, his eyes glistening.

“If you don’t want to quit, then don’t! I don’t think you should let others decide for you!”

“Especially not teachers. They know fuck all about anything,” Matsuoka cuts in, hard and bitter.

“But I can’t - I mean, it’s already been decided, how can I - ” Ryugazaki stammers.

“You _can_ , Rei-chan. You’re stronger than you think! Fight back!”

The vehemence in Nagisa’s tone startles Makoto. He looks at the younger boy in surprise, new respect welling up inside him.

Nagisa’s fixing Ryugazaki with a determined gaze, pinning him to the spot, and Ryugazaki’s staring back like Nagisa is some amazing creature he’s never seen before. There’s a brief hush as Ryugazaki’s mouth opens slightly, looking like he wants to say something, but the words die on his lips.

“Why?” he whispers, eventually.

Makoto can hear him, but he seems to be speaking only to Nagisa.

“Why do you think I’m strong? Why do you say things like that?”

Nagisa smiles at Ryugazaki then, warm and tender, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

“Because I’ve seen your pole vault.”

Ryugazaki seems to crumble, and he buries his face in between his knees, hugging them close as Nagisa leans over to wrap his arms around him.

Makoto’s overcome by the feeling that he’s intruding on a private moment, and turns to look at Haru instead. Haru’s gazing thoughtfully at the unfolding scene. He seems to be filing it away inside his memory, storing away the emotion, perhaps, Makoto thinks, for a drawing sometime down the road.

“Tachibana-senpai.”

The sound of Ryugazaki’s voice calling his name makes Makoto start. He turns back to look at him. “Ryugazaki-kun?”

Ryugazaki swallows. The troubled expression returns to his face. Nagisa’s let go of him now, though he remains hovering close by, gaze fixed firmly on Ryugazaki with fierce concern.

“That’s why… Tachibana-senpai, that’s why I don’t understand. I want to continue pole vault so badly. I want to do it always, and it’s being taken away from me. But you’re a swimming star. You’ve won so many medals for the school. You’re so lucky - you can swim as much as you like - but you _don’t_ actually want to? Yet you say you love to swim…”

Ryugazaki’s voice trails off into a confused daze.

Makoto sighs. “That’s just it. I love to swim. I don’t love being a swimming star. I don’t love being in the spotlight like that.”

He takes a deep breath, steels himself mentally, feeling Haru’s sharp gaze on him. “I - ”

Just then, they hear an angry roar up the stairwell. “ _MATSUOKA!_ ”

“It’s the school caretaker!” Matsuoka hisses. “Move it. _Now._ ”

Makoto springs to his feet in a hurry. The others follow, Ryugazaki moaning incoherently about being in _so_ much trouble, and -

“Follow me,” says Matsuoka. He’s gone to the stairs on the opposite side of the roof, beckoning them over with a hurried wave of his hand.

Makoto runs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Makoto's song is "Abendsonne" by OLDCODEX, from the _Dried Up Youthful Fame_ single.


	5. 1.06pm - swim

**1.06pm**

“What are we doing here?” Makoto whispers.

Matsuoka’s led them on a haphazard dash through the school hallways, down to the gym and the basketball courts, and they’re now standing in the boys’ locker room, the one that exits to the pool on the other side. Makoto is terrified that at any time, one of his teammates might come barging through and find them.

“Your club trains on Saturday mornings, right, and they’re done by lunchtime?” Matsuoka snaps in reply, under his breath. “Then you all split, I’m guessing to eat ten bowls of ramen or something because you’re fucking starving by then, so no one’s gonna be coming in here. Get it?”

Makoto opens his mouth, then closes it. Matsuoka is absolutely right, though how he knows that is beyond Makoto. “How do you - ”

“Tachibana, I spend every Saturday in detention. I _know_ these things. Stay here, the lot of you. Don’t even breathe loudly.”

Matsuoka disappears, silent and stealthy, and Makoto can’t help but admire the way he moves, despite the circumstances.

They stand in the shadows, behind a row of lockers. Makoto’s heart is still pounding from running down the corridors. He tries to slow his breathing.

“Shouldn’t we go back to the classroom?” Ryugazaki asks, nervously. “What if Principal Yamada discovers we’re gone?”

“Then it would have been his fat ass chasing us, not the caretaker’s.”

Matsuoka reappears as noiselessly as he disappeared. Ryugazaki jumps. “M-Matsuoka-senpai - ”

Matsuoka jerks his thumb to the doorway behind him. “There’s no one. Coast is clear.” He turns, and leads the way out of the locker room.

It’s surreal for Makoto, standing by the poolside in his school uniform rather than his legskins, surrounded not by his teammates but by Haru and three people he’d never even spoken to in his life before this morning. He’s not used to seeing the pool like this, deserted and silent.

Haru’s gone straight to the edge of the pool. He’s taking off the jacket Makoto foisted on him, and turns to throw it back in his direction. Makoto scrambles to catch it out of the air. It takes him that split second to process what’s happening, and then he flings the jacket onto the nearest bench in a hurry and runs to Haru. “Haru, don’t!”

Too late. Haru’s shirt and pants have come off with blinding speed, and he’s already in the pool.

Makoto groans. “Haru…”

“Amazing,” says Nagisa, his eyes wide. “Does he _always_ wear his swimsuit under his pants?”

“Pretty much,” says Makoto, with a resigned sigh.

“So that’s what you meant with the stripping thing,” Matsuoka remarks. He sounds amused.

“If we need to leave in a hurry, it’s - it’s not good if Nanase-senpai’s in the pool like this!” Ryugazaki points out, flustered.

“Ah, relax,” says Matsuoka. He goes over to a bench alongside the length of the pool and sits down. There’s a skylight above this part of the pool, and the sunlight filtering through lights Matsuoka’s face gently as he leans back against the wall. “Principal Yamada always disappears for a long, slow lunch.”

“But the caretaker, he saw - ”

“Yeah, well… usually it’s my word against his and he always believes the caretaker, but if you guys back me up this time…”

Matsuoka’s gaze travels slowly between each of them. Ryugazaki. Nagisa. Makoto.

“You can count on me, Rin-chan!” Nagisa winks cheerily.

Makoto can’t see any way out of it. Between not wanting to lie and not wanting to get another detention, he admits to himself, somewhat shamefacedly, that the latter is a bigger concern for him right now. “Yeah,” he says to Matsuoka. “We’re all in this together now, right?”

Matsuoka’s eyes widen. Then he smirks, and turns to Ryugazaki. “Hear that? We’re all in this together. You in or not?”

Ryugazaki pushes his glasses up his nose again, and mumbles an indistinct _hrrmph_. It’s probably the closest they’re going to get from him in terms of some kind of assent, thinks Makoto, and Matsuoka doesn’t press him any further either.

Matsuoka jerks his head towards the pool, where Haru is languidly swimming down the middle lane. “What about him?”

“You don’t have to worry about Haru. He doesn’t really care about rules and stuff, anyway,” says Makoto.

He joins Matsuoka on the bench. Nagisa and Ryugazaki sit on Matsuoka’s other side, watching Haru swim. Ryugazaki looks especially enraptured.

“Nanase-senpai’s freestyle is beautiful,” he whispers, almost to himself.

Makoto laughs. “That’s all he swims.”

“Eh? Haru-chan _can’t_ swim any of the other strokes?” Nagisa sounds perplexed.

“Well, I’m sure he can if he wants to. But free is his most natural state, so he finds it a bother to try anything else,” says Makoto, watching his best friend glide smoothly through the water. A fond smile spreads across his face. “Haru doesn’t like doing things he finds troublesome. He usually leaves them to me.”

Nagisa, watching him, smiles as well. “You love Haru-chan a lot, don’t you?”

Makoto tenses almost reflexively at that question. Nagisa doesn’t know, can’t know, how much lies behind those words -

Makoto doesn’t answer for a second, a second that seems to stretch out interminably to him, but probably passes in no more than a blink of an eye for the others. His gaze is drawn to Haru in the pool again, as it always is. Haru, beautiful and fluid, in a world of his own, so far away he can’t reach. He sighs.

“Mako-chan?” Nagisa sounds hesitant. “Um, did I say something wrong? I’m sorry.”

Makoto shakes his head. “No, it’s not your fault. You’re right. I _do_ love Haru a lot. There was a time when… well…”

He pauses. _Makoto, get a grip!_

He looks at Nagisa, who’s biting his bottom lip in concern, at Ryugazaki, eyeing him with curiosity, and finally, at Matsuoka, who’s simply watching him with a steady gaze. No judgment. No expectations.

It’s strange, thinks Makoto, but with this lot - perhaps _because_ it’s this lot, this lot of equally screwed up people - he feels like it might be okay to say it, after all.

“There was a time when I felt I might be in love with him,” says Makoto, quietly. He feels a blush starting in his neck.

Matsuoka lets out a long, slow, hissing breath. “Man. No wonder you always seem so wound up about something.”

“Eh?” Makoto turns to look at him in surprise.

Matsuoka’s got one foot propped up on the bench now, resting an arm on his knee as he tilts his upper body to face Makoto. “Well, it’s a fucking _nightmare_ for the swim club’s golden boy to be gay, isn’t it?”

Makoto opens his mouth to try and respond, but words fail him. Of all people to understand, to grasp this right away - Matsuoka?

“But why? I don’t understand.” Nagisa pipes up. “I like boys too, it’s not a secret! And no one seems to care!”

Nagisa asks this with such refreshing honesty and innocence that Makoto can’t help but smile a little, in spite of everything. Indeed, the whole school knows which way sweet, adorable Hazuki Nagisa swings, and everyone seems to love him all the more for it, especially the girls.

Nagisa’s looking at Makoto, brows slightly furrowed in puzzlement. But it’s Matsuoka who answers for him.

“Because you’re not a sports star, dumbass. God, I don’t know what it is about fucking athletes, maybe the raging testosterone goes to their heads and eats their brains - ”

Ryugazaki clears his throat. “Studies have shown that in competitive settings, testosterone increases the male drive for social dominance.”

Matsuoka stares at Ryugazaki. “Yeah, okay. It eats their brains. So Tachibana would be laughed out of the locker room if his teammates found out, right? Worse than _laughed_. Heckled. Bullied. Whatever, shit.”

Once again, Matsuoka has stunned Makoto into speechlessness.

“That’s what you meant, Tachibana-senpai?” says Ryugazaki, looking intently at Makoto. “When you were talking about the pressure of being a sports star, what people expect from you…”

Makoto nods, once, slowly.

There’s a brief silence. The sound of Haru’s steady strokes making splashes in the pool fills the air.

“But what about now?” asks Nagisa, in a hushed voice, staring wide-eyed at Makoto. “Are you still in love with Haru-chan?”

“Mmm, well…” Makoto looks down, pensive. “Haru is my best friend. At the end of the day, we’re better off staying that way. We’re a bit too close to really be a couple, I think… it would be problematic.”

Matsuoka cuts in bluntly. “Did you actually discuss this with the watery freak over there or did you just decide it yourself?”

“We did talk about it.” Makoto smiles a small, wan smile. “I can’t hide anything from Haru. He said what we have is too… deep, and, um, _intrinsic_ , to our being, to try and mess up with romantic feelings.”

“ _Intrinsic to your being?_ ” Matsuoka repeats in disbelief.

“What does that mean?” asks Ryugazaki, sounding mystified.

“Haru’s words.” Makoto laughs a little, then. It’s such a Haru way to put things, he thinks. He’d said that in the same way he talks about _feeling_ the water, abstract and conceptual, and incomprehensible to pretty much all of the rest of the world.

Matsuoka cocks an eyebrow. “And you’re down with that?”

Makoto nods. “Yeah. I know it sounds crazy, but… Haru’s right, after all. What we have is a different kind of love.”

“Damn straight it sounds crazy,” mutters Matsuoka. “But if it works for both of you, knock yourselves out.”

It does. Makoto simply can’t explain it to anyone else, anyone who isn’t him and Haru, the nature of the bond they share.

He turns to Nagisa. “I’m sorry I reacted like that just now. It’s actually kind of the reason why I’m here in detention, so I froze up for a bit…”

“You’re in detention because you love Haru-chan? That’s so romantic!”

“Well, not directly. I punched a classmate,” says Makoto, grimacing a little at the memory.

“Eh?” Nagisa squeaks.

“Why did you do that, Tachibana-senpai?” asks Ryugazaki, pushing his glasses up his nose.

Makoto appreciates Ryugazaki’s unspoken words. _I’m sure you must have had a good reason._

“Because he was making fun of Haru. About being so close to me.” Makoto sighs, and looks down at his hands. He’s clenched them, unconsciously, into fists. He uncurls one hand, then the other, slowly, till his arms hang limply over his knees.

“It was after school. There was no practice that day. I was on cleaning duty. Haru was waiting for me at the school gate to walk home together.”

Now that he’s started to tell the story, Makoto finds that he _wants_ to continue. It’s cathartic. And it’s okay, he thinks, if it’s with these guys.

 _can you keep the hurt inside  
_ _the clouds are hanging low in the sky_

A line from that song echoes through his head.

This is all ephemeral, he thinks. He’ll probably never interact with them again after today’s detention is over. Sharing this with Nagisa, Ryugazaki and Matsuoka, now, feels a little like flinging all his darkness into the wide open sky, watching it fade and float away, into nothing.

“When I walked up to him, I saw a guy from our class standing really close. Too close. And he had this expression on his face, this _look_ , this sneer. I didn’t hear what he was saying till I was nearer, but even from a distance I could tell it wasn’t anything good…”

Makoto pauses, and takes a breath, composing himself.

The others are hushed. Even Nagisa’s staring at him in silence. He continues, keeping his voice low and even, as much as he can.

“Haru was just standing there like he didn’t care. But I got closer, and I heard the other guy ask if he takes it up the ass, and if he likes it. I heard my name.”

“Oh, he did not! That _jerk_!” cries Nagisa.

“Then I saw him take a step towards Haru, and I just… I just lost it. That’s when I went and punched him.”

“He deserved it,” says Ryugazaki, fiercely. “He might have hurt Nanase-senpai if you didn’t step in!”

“Maybe. But I threw the first punch. So that’s why I’m here.”

Makoto exhales, slowly. He looks down, and notices his right hand has clenched itself up into a fist again, without his realising it.

“The worst thing is, I _knew_ this was happening. I’ve always known that Haru gets teased for being close to me. Because people don’t have the guts to tease _me_. They go for him. They think he’s a soft target.”

“I hate people like that.”

Matsuoka’s voice cuts in then, sudden, harsh and angry.

“People who pick on those who can’t fight back are the fucking scum of the earth. I - ”

Matsuoka stops talking suddenly, as if catching himself in the middle of an awkward admission. He looks round at the rest of their expectant faces, a guarded expression shading his eyes.

“I had to deal with a few of them,” he mutters, eventually. “At Samezuka. There was… someone there I wanted to protect too.”

Makoto stares at Matsuoka. This is a side of him he’s never even imagined.

But Matsuoka’s clammed up, now. His gaze is opaque, looking away, out towards the pool. He doesn’t say anything else.

Makoto exchanges a puzzled look with Nagisa and Ryugazaki. It seems Matsuoka doesn’t want to be pressed on this, so Makoto files it away, for now.

In the sudden silence, he looks down at the floor, and sighs softly.

“I’m the worst. I didn’t even deal with a few of them, Matsuoka,” he whispers. “I was afraid, and I didn’t do anything to help Haru, until I _actually_ saw it happen in front of me, and then… I just ended up in detention for it.”

Makoto stops talking. He feels spent, now. But it’s like something has been purged, at long last, and it’s… well, not a _good_ feeling, exactly, but perhaps one of relief, the load on his shoulders seeming just a bit lighter.

“It’s not your fault, Mako-chan!” Nagisa cries.

“Makoto. He’s right. It’s not. Stop being such an idiot.”

Makoto starts, and looks towards the pool. Haru's swimming over to them. He stops by the pool's edge and leans on his elbows, staring up at Makoto intently.

“Haru! Did you hear - ”

“Caught the last bit of what you said.” He eyes Nagisa, then Ryugazaki, and finally Matsuoka with narrowed, cautious eyes, like he’s going to rip them a new one if they hurt Makoto.

“Nanase, you could burn a hole in my skull with that look of yours,” Matsuoka mutters.

“It’s okay, Haru. I told them everything. About what happened. About - me,” says Makoto, smiling at Haru.

“Hmmph.” Haru hoists himself out of the pool, but doesn’t join them on the bench. He sits with his legs dangling in the water, back facing them.

“Makoto always thinks he has to protect me,” says Haru, still looking at the pool. His voice, drifting away from them and over the vast expanse of the watery blue, seems even more quiet and removed than usual.

“But I don’t need to be protected. It doesn’t bother me.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Makoto sees Matsuoka give a visible start at Haru’s words, his eyes going wider.

“How can it not?” says Makoto, softly, to Haru. “It bothers _me_. It bothers me so much.”

“Because it doesn’t _matter_ , Makoto.” Haru sounds almost impatient. “Let people think whatever they want. I don’t care what they think, or what you are. You’re just Makoto.”

“But you might get hurt because – because of _me_.”

Haru shrugs, nonchalant, droplets of water sliding off his shoulders. He kicks his legs in the pool lightly, stirring up ripples on the surface.

Makoto’s always said Haru is so much braver than him, always wished, not-so-secretly, that he was a bit more like Haru. Able to shut out the world, to not bother with unimportant things, to let things roll off his back as easily as those drops of water. But that’s not him, he knows. He cares too much. It’s a blessing, and a curse.

“God, it makes me sick,” says Matsuoka, suddenly. “People make me sick. How is it anyone’s fucking business what you stick your dick in?”

Ryugazaki makes a choking noise. Nagisa laughs in delight. “Rin-chan!”

“What?” Matsuoka turns to look at him.

Nagisa leans over and waves a finger in Matsuoka’s face. “Sometimes, it’s not just what you stick your dick in, it’s what goes in your - ”

“ _Nagisa-kun!_ ” Ryugazaki yelps loudly, at the same time Makoto claps his hands over his ears, feeling himself turn red.

“ - mouth,” finishes Nagisa. He looks at their scandalised faces, smiling sweetly. “What did you think I was going to say?”

Makoto buries his face in his hands.

Matsuoka gives a short, barking laugh. “You’re a little shit.”

“Nope, I’m an innocent virgin,” says Nagisa, totally unfazed.

“Stop shitting us, you’re not innocent about _anything_.”

“I am! I’m still waiting for the right guy!” declares Nagisa, bright and cheerful and _totally_ incongruous.

Makoto sees Ryugazaki turn completely red, staring at Nagisa. He looks away briefly to hide his smile.

“Practise sticking fingers in your ass, then. Or your first time is gonna motherfucking _hurt_. Gets better, though,” says Matsuoka, in an alarmingly matter-of-fact way.

“Ah, I’ll remember that, Rin-chan! Thanks!”

 _This is the twilight zone. I must be dreaming_ , thinks Makoto. He has to pinch himself to confirm that he’s not actually fallen down a rabbit hole somewhere along the way, in this bizarre world, where Matsuoka Rin and Hazuki Nagisa are having a sex talk in his presence, in school, by the poolside. And what did he just hear Matsuoka _say_ about -

Makoto’s brain short-circuits, then, fizzles and shuts down. He can almost feel the steam coming out of his ears.

“Can we please stop talking about this?” Ryugazaki’s wearing an expression of extreme pain.

Matsuoka smirks at him. Nagisa turns, all wide-eyed apology. “Sorry! Wow, Rei-chan, Mako-chan, you’re all red!”

“Unnngghhh,” Makoto mumbles.

Haru turns to face them, for the first time. Makoto sees an amused smile on his lips, lingering there just for a moment, before he stands up. “Towel,” he says to Makoto.

Makoto stands up to head to the locker room. He glances at the others. “Should we all head back?”

Nagisa pouts. “Do we have to? I don’t want to write that stupid essay.”

“A thousand words isn’t even that many,” says Ryugazaki, reprovingly.

“Why don’t you write all our essays, then?” Matsuoka says with a grin, as he stands.

“That’s cheating!” Ryugazaki sounds shocked.

“If you keep chatting I’m going to leave you behind.”

Haru’s voice trails off in his wake as he walks, purposefully, towards the locker rooms.

“Ah, Haru-chan, wait!” Nagisa runs after Haru, ignoring Ryugazaki’s plaintive cries of “ _please_ don’t run by the poolside, Nagisa-kun, it’s not safe!”

Matsuoka lingers briefly. “Tachibana.”

Makoto turns to glance at him.

“You okay?”

Makoto smiles. “Yeah. Thanks, Matsuoka.”

“…Rin.”

“ _Eh?_ ” Makoto can’t help the small, surprised exclamation that slips out.

“Rin. Call me Rin.”

Before Makoto can say anything, Matsuoka - _Rin_ , Makoto corrects, in his mind - turns away and stalks off towards the locker room. He doesn’t look back at Makoto.

Makoto’s not sure what just happened, but he’s pretty sure it was something.

“Makoto.”

He hears Haru calling from the locker room door, and heads over, slightly dazed.


	6. 1.52pm - to be loved

**1.52pm**

They’re just about halfway to the classroom, making their way down a corridor, when Haru suddenly stops.

Makoto almost collides into him. “Haru?”

Haru turns to look at Makoto. “Lunchboxes,” is all he says.

Makoto groans. “Oh _no_. You’re right.”

“What is it, Haru-chan?” asks Nagisa, coming over. In front of him, Ryugazaki and Rin have also stopped, turning to look curiously at Haru.

“Our bento boxes. They’re still by the pool,” says Makoto.

Rin shrugs. “Leave them.”

“Easy for you to say, you don’t have one there!” Makoto protests vehemently. “And I have _two_!”

“I am actually rather fond of my purple box and would appreciate its retrieval,” says Ryugazaki, sounding a little nervous.

“Makoto’s mother won’t be pleased if he loses two boxes…” Haru murmurs.

Rin rolls his eyes. “God, you guys. Go back first. I’ll go get them.”

Makoto feels a pang of guilt. “Wait. Let me come with you.”

Rin eyes him warily, but doesn’t say anything.

“It’s troublesome for you to carry four boxes by yourself, Matsuoka-senpai,” Ryugazaki points out.

“If Makoto is going with you, then so am I,” says Haru.

“It’s all right, Haru,” Makoto says, looking into his best friend’s blue eyes earnestly.

_It’s okay. You don’t need to protect me, either. I’ll be fine._

Haru’s eyes narrow. _Are you sure._

Makoto gives a small nod.

Haru sighs, then turns abruptly on his heel, walking back to the classroom without another word. Ryugazaki casts one last confused glance at Makoto and Rin, before Nagisa tugs at his sleeve with a smile on his face, beckoning him to follow Haru.

“Why do I feel like I just missed an entire conversation?” Rin grumbles, as he starts making his way back towards the locker room with long, loping strides.

Makoto laughs.

Rin is walking a lot faster, now that he doesn’t have to make up for Haru’s languid pace or Ryugazaki’s skittish nervousness. Makoto keeps up with him, barely.

They make it back to the poolside. The boxes are stacked on a bench, next to the one where they were sitting. Belatedly, Makoto also realises he forgot to pick up his jacket from near the locker room door, where he’d thrown it after Haru tossed it at him.

“I guess it’s a good thing Haru made us come back,” Makoto remarks, as he puts his jacket on again. It has his name on the back.

Just then, he hears noises coming from the locker room.

“Oh crap,” he whispers under his breath, as he walks quickly over to Rin, who’s gone to the farther bench.

Rin looks up at Makoto’s stricken face, handing him the green and blue boxes. “What is it?”

“There are people in the locker room,” says Makoto softly.

Rin makes a small growl of frustration. “You heard them?”

Makoto nods.

“Like, _student_ people? Or _teacher_ people?”

“Oh,” Makoto thinks. “I don’t know. I didn’t hear anyone talking, just footsteps and noises.”

“Your teammates?”

“I don’t think so,” says Makoto. “Club practice is done by lunch. Everyone goes home after that. They don’t usually come back. Nationals are just over, so they’re not really training for anything.”

“Hmmph.” Rin walks over to the bench in the far corner of the pool, tucked away where the skylight doesn’t reach. “Then they won’t come in here, right? We just have to hang here for a bit till they scram.”

Makoto joins him. He puts his bento boxes on the floor in between his feet so he won’t forget them again. Rin follows his example.

They sit in silence for a bit, Rin staring into space, out over the pool. There’s an oddly pensive look on his face.

While Rin broods, Makoto leans back, stares at the ceiling, and contemplates the sheer bizarreness of his current situation. _Stuck at the pool with Matsuoka Rin on a Saturday afternoon._ A Matsuoka Rin with whom, apparently, he is now on first name terms, and that isn’t even the weirdest part. The weirdest part is that it feels strangely comfortable. Makoto doesn’t really feel all that awkward, sitting here like this with Rin.

“Hey, Tachibana.”

Makoto turns. Rin’s voice is so unnervingly quiet it almost doesn’t sound like him.

“Makoto.”

Rin turns to look at him, eyebrows raised.

“You should call me Makoto. Rin.” Makoto smiles. And then -

He sees a sight he’s never seen before on Rin’s face, and he thinks, Matsuoka Rin looks so different when he smiles.

It’s not even a full-on smile. His teeth aren’t showing, and there’s something troubled in his eyes still. But when the corners of his lips turn up like this, openly, there’s a tender softness about him that makes Rin looks almost gentle.

“Makoto, then.”

Rin pauses briefly. That smile fades from his face, but the sadness remains in his eyes.

“I understand how you feel. About protecting Nanase.”

His voice is sober.

“You know what I said just now? That there was someone at Samezuka I tried to protect?”

Makoto nods in understanding. “Someone like Haru?”

“Sort of.” Rin looks down, clasping his hands. “He wasn’t my childhood friend. He was my roommate. His name was Nitori, and he was fucking useless at everything, but one hell of a hard worker.”

“Not like Haru, then,” Makoto remarks. “Haru’s good at things without seeming to do any work at all.”

“Yeah, not in that way,” says Rin, with a brief laugh. “But in a different way. Nitori also attracted bullies, because he was small and didn’t fight back.”

Makoto eyes Rin curiously. “ _Didn’t_ fight back, or _couldn’t_?”

Haru’s the first type of non-fighter. Rin seems to get his question.

“Didn’t. Nitori has spirit. If he didn’t, we would never have got along.” Matsuoka grins. “Man, that kid. The number of times he pushed me, the way he used to say, _Matsuoka-senpai, you can do better - you can make it -_ ”

 _Do better at what?_ Makoto wonders. _Make it at what?_

Perhaps Rin, too, has greater dreams of something, a flickering hope that’s been caged up within him by whatever lurks in the darkness.

“I know he _can_ fight back if he wants to. But he’s like Nanase, in that way. He tried not to let it get to him. And he tried not to let it show, to me.”

“What kind of bullies did he attract?”

Rin returns his gaze with a steady one of his own. “All kinds. The kind who stole his allowance. The kind who stole his homework so he couldn’t hand it in. The kind who tripped him down the stairs and then said _oh my god, you’re so clumsy_.”

Makoto is horrified. He knows Samezuka is an all-boys’ school, and bullying there probably _is_ worse than at Iwatobi, but -

“That’s awful,” he whispers.

“Fucking awful,” Rin repeats.

His hands clench tighter, fingers lacing round each other as their knuckles turn white. “Nitori is a year younger. So I didn’t even know this shit was happening, till he came back to our room one day really banged up, you know? I was like, what the fuck happened, Nitori, and he just smiled and said _nothing, I fell_.”

Rin slams a fist into the bench, then, startling Makoto.

“Like _fuck_ he fell.”

Makoto understands. It’s not Haru’s way, either, to show it to Makoto openly when he’s been hurt. Haru would probably have looked away, refusing to meet his gaze, and just said _it’s nothing_.

He and Haru are always trying to protect each other, thinks Makoto. Trying so hard, sometimes failing.

“I got so pissed. I was ready to go smash heads in. But Nitori grabbed me, like, he actually _held_ me back, and said _Matsuoka-senpai, I don’t need to be protected_.”

Makoto blinks in surprise. Word for word, it’s exactly what Haru had said just now.

Rin sees his expression. “Yeah. So when Nanase said that… made me jump, too.”

“Then…” Makoto starts, then pauses, unsure if he’s pushing too much. “What happened? I mean, if you had this person at Samezuka you wanted to protect, then why...”

“What the fuck am I doing here, right?” Rin mutters, bitterly. “It’s simple. I failed. That’s what happened.”

The pain on Rin’s face is almost too much for Makoto to stand. As it is, it cuts right through to his heart to look at directly, so he looks down at the tiled floor and out towards the pool, the midday sun shining though the skylight, making the blue surface seem to sparkle.

Makoto keeps their solitary silence, saying nothing, waiting patiently for Rin to continue.

“There was a graffiti case at the end of my second year,” says Rin, eventually.

“In school?” Makoto asks.

Rin shakes his head. “On police property.”

Makoto inhales sharply. School is one thing, but a police building is a different story altogether.

“Yeah. I was walking with Nitori around the area, that day. And we saw them do it. A bunch of kids in Samezuka uniforms. We went over, but they ran away before we got close enough to see who they were, and then at that moment, police showed up.”

Rin’s voice is flat and humourless, and Makoto has a dreadful feeling that he knows how this will play out. He doesn’t dare to say it, though. The pit of his stomach twists into knots as he looks at Rin, stricken.

“Well, you can imagine the scene, right? Nitori and I are standing there, surrounded by spray paint cans, graffiti on the wall next to us, and no one else around. They took us both in for questioning right away. Called our teachers. Called our family. And then…”

Rin grimaces, and shudders.

“Well, in the end, after all kinds of shit went down, Nitori got suspended.”

“Wait.” Makoto can’t help but feel like he’s missed something. “Only Nitori? What about you?”

“They... didn’t believe I did it.” Rin sounds oddly evasive.

Makoto can’t figure out how to ask the obvious question without being rude, but between Matsuoka Rin and this Nitori, who sounds about as harmless as a field mouse, the outcome of the situation is so baffling he simply can’t _not_ ask. “Why not?”

“Iwasanhonourstudent,” Rin says, so quickly Makoto doesn’t quite catch it, and when his brain catches up with his ears, he can’t believe he’s heard right.

“ _What?_ ”

Rin sighs. “I was an honour student. Also, my dad was a policeman.”

“ _What?_ ”

Somewhat belatedly, Makoto regrets his complete ineloquence, but he’s truly and utterly stunned out of his mind. He seriously reconsiders the possibility of having entered a parallel universe.

A memory of them on the rooftop, over an hour ago, floats to the surface of his mind. _Matsuoka’s good at English._ He’d realised that, then. But he’d never expected him to turn out to be good at everything else, too.

As Makoto stares at Rin, still gaping in shock, Rin makes an impatient noise and keeps talking.

“I told them not to be so fucking stupid, if they punish Nitori they have to do the same to me too, _right_? Come on. But they didn’t. It was like - like - ”

A familiar expression flashes across Rin’s face, for a moment. It’s a look with all the fury and anger that Makoto’s used to seeing, the look that, before today, was one of the only ones he’d ever seen Matsuoka Rin wearing.

“Like they just wanted a convenient scapegoat, you know? And the teachers told them not to touch Samezuka’s top student. Fucking hell.”

 _No wonder,_ thinks Makoto.

He’s piecing it together, now, bit by bit. No wonder Rin hates teachers. No wonder he’s always full of rage. No wonder.

“My mom told me, after. My form teacher had said to them, if I get a police record, it’ll ruin my chances of ever becoming a police officer.”

Rin bites off his words and spits them out, like they taste bad in his mouth. “I guess Nitori was just a useless spare, to them.”

“Huh?” Makoto’s eyes widen. “You… want to be a police officer?”

“Not anymore,” Rin hisses. “Not after that day. They’re all fucking stupid _pricks_.”

“Wait, hang on,” Makoto says, remembering something, as his mind scrambles to make sense of all of this. “Didn’t you say your dad was a policeman? Couldn’t he have helped you?”

“He’s dead,” says Rin.

Never before in his life has Makoto wished so hard that a hole in the ground would open up right about now and engulf him.

He swallows. “I’m so sorry, Rin.”

“No, don’t be. You couldn’t have known. He died when I was in elementary school. He died on duty, protecting someone.”

Rin takes a deep breath, then, and leans back against the wall. He exhales slowly.

“That’s why I wanted to become a police officer. My dad was a hero. I wanted to be like him. I wanted to protect people, too.”

Rin says all this in a dead voice, flat and toneless.

“But now…?” Makoto asks, softly.

“Now? Well, look at me. I’m a failure. I didn’t even manage to protect _one_ person.” Rin laughs then, bitter and mocking.

Makoto studies Rin for a silent moment. “Did you transfer here because of what happened?”

“Yeah,” says Rin. “After that incident… that was when all - this - started.”

He waves a hand vaguely at himself.

“Something inside me just _snapped_ , you know? I felt like… what was the point of everything? Why was I studying so hard? What was I working for? I didn’t _want_ to be a police officer anymore, I _hated_ them all, and I hated my teachers for letting this happen, and I just couldn’t - couldn’t be bothered to give a fuck about any of them.”

Rin’s voice is starting to shake, the emotion coming back into it, raw and agonising, like an old wound ripped open. He raises his hands and buries his face in them, so Makoto can’t see his eyes.

“After that day... everything just went to hell,” says Rin, choking out the words. "I guess that's what happens when you find out that your dreams were a fucking joke to start with, right?"

Rin spits this out with vehemence. But Makoto hears his voice catch in his throat, right at the end, with the slightest of quivers, an almost desperate yearning for what could have been.

Makoto feels his heart clench. The pain radiates off Rin so powerfully that it’s almost unbearable.

“ _Rin_ ,” is all he says, voice low and gentle, trying to pour as much of his feelings into Rin’s name as he possibly can, as he looks on tenderly at him.

Because, he realises now, Matsuoka Rin isn’t some wild, feral animal that needs taming; what he needs is support and acceptance, to be understood, to be _loved_ for who he is, fuck-ups and all.

 _At the end of the day_ , thinks Makoto, _that’s all what any of us needs, isn’t it_?

To his amazement, Rin pitches forward unsteadily, leaning in towards Makoto, then buries his face in his chest in one swift motion.

His breath comes in rough, ragged gasps, and his hands grip the front of Makoto’s shirt tightly. Makoto can feel wet tears soaking through the fabric, seeping onto his skin.

Makoto freezes, for a split second.

_Rin is crying. Rin is holding on me. Matsuoka Rin is holding on to me and crying._

He wraps his arms round the other boy, and rests his head, lightly, on top of Rin’s.

“It’s okay, Rin,” Makoto whispers. “It’s okay.”


	7. 2.45pm - facing our feelings

**2.45pm**

They’re walking back down the corridor towards the classroom when Makoto feels his pocket vibrate, and jumps, before realising it’s his phone. He so rarely gets messages or calls on his mobile that it takes him a second to remember it’s there.

He takes it out and flips it open one-handed, balancing bento boxes with the other hand. _Makoto. Where are you. We’re running out of excuses to make for you and Matsuoka. You’ve been “gone to the toilet” for a long time._

Makoto knows what Haru’s really asking, reads the unwritten _are you okay_ between the lines.

Rin turns around, noticing Makoto’s stopped walking. “What is it?”

Makoto holds out his phone so Rin can read the text.

Rin scans it quickly, and laughs. “God knows what the fuck Yamada thinks we’re doing in the toilet.”

“ _Rin!_ ” Makoto cries, blushing.

Rin flashes him a grin, and speeds up his pace.

Makoto types a hurried reply. _Coming back!! Sorry, Haru!_

He shoves his phone back into his pocket and runs after Rin, catching up with him.

They make their way back, walking side by side. Rin’s eyes are still a little red, but the tears are dry now, and he’s holding himself steady.

Rin’s gaze flickers towards Makoto briefly. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?” Makoto asks.

“Looking at me like a worried mother hen.”

“I’m not - ” Makoto starts to say, then realises he probably _is_ doing exactly that. Haru calls him out on it all the time, too.

“Sorry,” he says.

Rin doesn’t say anything in reply. But just before they reach the classroom door, Makoto hears his voice, low and almost inaudible.

“I appreciate it, though. Thanks. Makoto.”

Makoto starts, and turns to look at Rin, but he’s already gone ahead through the door and back into the room.

Haru’s head snaps round to the door immediately as Makoto steps back in. “Makoto.”

“Hey, Haru. Sorry to make you worry.”

“Rin-chan! Mako-chan!” Nagisa leaps up from his chair beside Ryugazaki, and comes barrelling towards them, almost knocking Makoto over. “What _happened_ to you?”

“You were gone for an awfully long time, Tachibana-senpai, Matsuoka-senpai!” says Ryugazaki, standing up as well. Only Haru remains seated, gaze fixed intently on Makoto.

“Some random punks came into the locker room,” says Rin, tossing Ryugazaki his purple lunchbox. “We were stuck at the pool for a while. Couldn’t get out.”

“Ohhhhh,” Nagisa says, taking his yellow box from Rin. “We were worried! We didn’t know if you got _caught!_ Or _lost!_ ”

“Why the hell would we get lost in school?”

“I get lost sometimes,” says Nagisa thoughtfully, biting on his lower lip.

“That’s just you, dumbass.”

“You could have texted me earlier, Haru,” says Makoto, going back to his desk and giving Haru a reassuring smile.

“Haru-chan _totally_ forgot he even had his phone with him!” says Nagisa, accusingly, as he whips round to glare at Haru.

Haru shrugs, and shoots Makoto a look.

“Ah, well… it’s a bit unpredictable whether Haru carries his phone around with him or not,” Makoto says to Nagisa.

“Then why have a phone at all?” Rin asks.

Makoto turns to his other side. To his surprise, Rin hasn’t returned to his spot at the back of the room. Instead, he’s leaning on the desk next to Makoto’s, hands in pockets.

Or perhaps it’s not so surprising after all, thinks Makoto.

“His parents made him get it,” he explains.

“My parents made me get one too,” grumbles Nagisa. “So they can keep tabs on me. They’re the _worst_. They’re always texting me _where are you_ , _are you coming home soon_ , _dinner’s getting cold_ …”

“Nagisa-kun,” says Ryugazaki. “Your parents do love you, you know?”

Nagisa trails off. Words seem to fail him for a few seconds, which in itself, thinks Makoto, is surely an event of seismic proportions.

“I can’t deal with it,” says Nagisa, his voice quiet. “They’re just _too much_. I want them to be proud of me, but I’m never good enough…”

Ryugazaki sighs. He leans over then, unexpectedly, and places his hands on Nagisa’s shoulders, looking straight into the other boy’s eyes.

Nagisa gives a small start, and stares up at Ryugazaki.

“If you feel this way, you have to tell your parents,” says Ryugazaki. “You have to face them. You can’t run away. _You’re stronger than you think_ , remember? You taught me that, Nagisa-kun.”

Ryugazaki smiles.

Makoto watches in fascination as Nagisa’s expressive face runs through a gamut of emotions. The belligerent look gives way, briefly, to uncertainty, then dissolves itself into a small, hopeful smile to match Ryugazaki’s.

“I guess… I guess you’re right, Rei-chan,” says Nagisa, with renewed resolution.

“Of course I’m right. I’m the smartest guy in our grade, remember?” says Ryugazaki lightly, pushing up his glasses, but there’s a slight flush on his cheeks.

Nagisa laughs then, a clear, tinkling sound that brightens up the whole room.

“But more importantly, Nagisa-kun…” Ryugazaki starts speaking again, his tone scolding.

Nagisa groans. “I know, I know, don’t say it!”

Ryugazaki barrels on stubbornly. “Have you even written a single word of your essay? We only have an hour left!”

Makoto starts, and glances up at the clock on the wall. True enough, Ryugazaki’s right; somehow, without his realising it, the afternoon has flown by.

It strikes him, then, that this is probably the last hour he’ll ever spend with these people. The five of them, thrown together by sheer circumstance, with nothing in common, nothing to connect them, except, now -

Now, things have changed, haven’t they?

Makoto looks round the room at each of them, wondering if they’re thinking the same thing he is. Haru. Nagisa. Ryugazaki.

Rin, last of all. Rin, standing next to him.

When they leave this room at four o’clock, what will happen to them? Makoto wonders. Will they go back to the way they were? Will he and Rin pass each other silently in the corridors? Will Ryugazaki pretend not to know Nagisa? It seems unthinkable, but then, the alternative is equally strange to think about.

“One more hour, huh,” Nagisa says, his unusually pensive tone mirroring Makoto’s thoughts.

“Yeah,” says Makoto.

Nagisa turns to him then. “And what about you, Mako-chan?”

“Eh?” Makoto stares at the blond boy.

“Are you going to stop running away?”

Being asked this, point blank, out of the blue, throws Makoto for a loop. Right on cue, a split second before he even starts to think of a response, Haru looks up sharply at Nagisa.

“Leave Makoto alone.”

“It’s okay, Haru,” Makoto says. He smiles, then, and means it. “The truth is, I should. I know I should. I’ve been so scared… for so long.”

He feels Haru’s eyes on him, and turns to meet his best friend’s gaze. “Nagisa’s right. I think I should stop running too. What do you think, Haru?”

“You should do whatever you like,” says Haru, calmly.

Haru always says that, and Makoto knows what he means. _Whatever you do, I’ll support you._

 _Thank you,_ he tells Haru silently, his eyes softening.

Haru inclines his head, saying nothing in reply.

“It’s a bit scary still to think of coming out all at once… maybe I’ll just tell one or two of my closer friends on the team,” Makoto says, turning back to Nagisa.

Nagisa’s answering smile is warm and gentle. “One step at a time, right, Mako-chan? We can all start facing our feelings.”

_Facing my feelings, huh?_

Makoto’s gaze wanders upwards to Rin, at those words, and Rin meets it with a strangely tender one of his own.

“If anyone you tell has a problem with it,” says Rin, “tell them to go fuck themselves.”

Makoto can’t help but laugh, then, and Rin grins. “Or I can always tell them for you, I guess,” he adds.

Makoto doesn’t miss the way Haru sits up a little straighter and turns his gaze on Rin, or the unspoken implication in those words: that Rin intends to be a part of Makoto’s life, still, come Monday morning, and beyond.

 _Or am I overreading this?_ he thinks, suddenly. Is Rin just saying that without thinking?

But he catches the split-second flicker of doubt in Rin’s eyes, a sudden flash of fear, and he knows absolutely that Rin _does_ mean what he’d said. That they did share _something_ , back at the pool, something all the more precious for being raw and ugly and painful, and they have an understanding now, Makoto and Rin, that binds them.

And if Makoto lets go now, if he refuses to acknowledge it, it’ll never come back again.

Makoto looks at Rin, and smiles. “I’ll be counting on you. Rin.”

 _Listen to me,_ he thinks, desperately, fixing his gaze on Rin. _Hear what I’m saying, please. Don’t put your walls up again. I don’t think I could stand it._

Rin nods, once, and the grin on his face widens. His eyes seem to soften, shimmering in the light just for a moment, and Makoto wonders, with some alarm, if he’s going to start crying again.

Makoto doesn’t need to turn to Haru to know his piercing blue gaze is boring a hole in the side of his skull, asking, _‘Rin’?_

_Yes, Haru._

“Rin-chan, you’re like a superhero,” Nagisa remarks. “Swooping down to Mako-chan’s rescue in a cape! Beating up bad guys!”

“Capes are stupid,” says Rin, flatly.

“Hmmm…” Haru hums, under his breath.

Makoto turns. Haru’s pencil is moving quickly over a blank piece of paper, and Makoto recognises the faint, sketchy outline of Rin’s face forming under his right hand. He smiles.

“Am I the only one concerned about this essay?” Ryugazaki’s chagrined voice pipes up.

“Yes, Rei-chan!” Nagisa says sweetly, at the same time Makoto laughs and says, “It seems like you are, Ryugazaki-kun.”

Ryugazaki turns to look at Makoto. The tense expression on his face relaxes slightly. “I think, Tachibana-senpai…”

He pauses then, and glances at Haru, and Rin.

“Nanase-senpai, Matsuoka-senpai… it would be nice if you called me Rei.”

Makoto starts in surprise, then returns Rei’s tentative smile.

“Of course. Thank you, Rei. You should call us by our first names, too.”

“See, everyone always ends up at this stage anyway, so you should all have skipped the awkward parts in the middle and done it from the start like me! Mako-chan, Rei-chan, Haru-chan, Rin-chan.”

Nagisa’s beatific grin as he turns to each of them in turn just serves to obscure the fact, thinks Makoto, that this doesn’t actually make any sense, but he can’t help his smile widening anyway.

“Rei.”

Rin speaks up, suddenly. The sound of Rin’s voice saying his name makes Rei jump.

“I was kidding before, but seriously, why don’t you just write for us?”

“It’s cheating!” Rei protests, looking pained. “Also… you want me to write another _four thousand words_ in less than an hour?”

“I don’t mean write _all_ our essays. I mean, just write something. Something from all of us, to Yamada, like a letter or some shit like that. And we can all sign it.”

“Ooooh! I like that!” says Nagisa, clapping.

“You mean, like… in lieu of essays?” Rei looks confused.

“Yeah,” says Rin. “Come on, don’t we all think the assignment is stupid anyway? _Who I think I am._ Really? I mean…”

Rin pauses for a breath, gaze moving between each of them, before he continues.

“It would take so much more than one thousand words for all of us. Each of us. How do you reduce a person to an _essay_? It’s really fucking rude, is what it is, it’s downright disrespectful to us.”

Nagisa is staring, wide-eyed, at Rin. “Wow, Rin-chan.”

Makoto had never even thought of it that way, but he can’t help but think - Rin is right. Rin is absolutely right. This was a ridiculous assignment, from the very start. They’re so impossibly complex, each and every one of them, that there’s no point trying to sum them up neatly like this.

Haru stirs beside him. “I agree.”

Rei pushes his glasses up, and takes a fresh sheet of paper from the pile on his desk.

 _Dear Principal Yamada_ , he writes, and pauses, looking at the rest of them.

“What do you want this letter to say, then?”


	8. 3.58pm - unfinished business

**3.58pm**

After numerous drafts and false starts, they finally come up with something short and simple that they're all happy with. They each sign the letter, and Rei places it on the teacher’s desk at the front of the room.

Makoto looks at the clock. It’s almost time.

A sudden inertia comes over him, something that’s almost like a reluctance to leave, unbelievable as that seems.

Nagisa follows Makoto’s gaze. “Ah, it’s nearly four, huh,” he says.

“Yeah…” says Rei. He looks at Nagisa, with a small smile. “Time to go back to normal life. I have so much studying to catch up on.”

Makoto glances at Haru, wondering what he wants to do for the rest of the afternoon, but Haru’s bent over at his desk, putting the finishing touches on the sketch he started earlier. He doesn’t meet Makoto’s gaze.

As the clock ticks over into four, right on cue, Principal Yamada appears in the doorway.

“You can go now,” he says. “Leave your essays on the desk in front.”

None of them leap to their feet immediately. Principal Yamada looks mildly surprised. He clears his throat.

“I hope you’ve all learned something, today,” he adds, turning to leave.

Makoto smiles a little to himself. If only, he thinks... if only Principal Yamada really knew just _how_ much they’d all learned.

Rei is the first to pick up his backpack, slowly. Straightening, he turns round to face the rest of them. “I…” he starts, then swallows, before continuing.

“I - I’m really happy I met each of you. Makoto-senpai. Haruka-senpai. Rin-senpai. Nagisa-kun - ”

“Rei-chan,” says Nagisa, hopping off his desk and grabbing his backpack as well. “Do you want to study together?”

Rei’s mouth falls open. He blushes.

“N-Nagisa-kun! I would… I would like that very much, I think,” he finishes, stammering out the last of his sentence.

Nagisa smiles brightly. He turns that smile, then, on Makoto, Rin and Haru, and raises his hand in farewell.

“Take care, okay? Mako-chan, Rin-chan, Haru-chan. Don’t forget…”

Nagisa’s smile softens, as he starts to follow Rei out of the classroom.

“One step at a time,” he says, giving them one last wave.

Rei pauses at the doorway, bows once in their direction with an odd formality, then the both of them disappear out of sight.

“We should go too, Haru,” says Makoto, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

“Yeah. Let’s scram. I don’t want to see Yamada’s face again today.” Rin strides quickly to the door. Makoto follows him, Haru close behind.

The three of them walk in silence, out of the school building. Makoto inhales, a sudden, welcome breath of fresh air. It’s getting chillier, now. The branches on the trees rustle with the wind, and their footsteps make crunching sounds on the dead leaves as they cross the courtyard.

Rin pauses at the school gate, zipping up his jacket.

“Here,” Haru says. He hands Rin his last drawing. “For you.”

Makoto smiles. He’d caught a glimpse of it, earlier.

Rin looks stunned as he studies the sketch. “What the hell is this?”

“Capes aren’t stupid,” is all Haru says. He shoots Makoto a fleeting glance, before starting to turn away. “See you later.”

“Eh?” says Makoto, startled. “Aren’t we walking back together?”

“No,” says Haru. His gaze flicks meaningfully over to Rin, who’s still staring down, mouth agape, at Haru’s drawing, and then back to Makoto.

_You two seem to have unfinished business._

Makoto doesn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or hug his best friend. He gives Haru a small nod. _Thanks, Haru._

“Hey… Haru,” says Rin, suddenly, looking up.

Haru doesn’t say anything, just gazes at him, waiting.

“Why are _you_ in detention? I’ve been wondering.”

“Ah, it’s because - ” Makoto starts to answer on his behalf, but Haru cuts him off. To his surprise, Makoto notices, Haru’s smiling.

“Makoto thinks it’s because I didn’t turn in homework.”

“Wait, Haru, you mean it’s _not_ because of that?” Makoto cries.

“Makoto. We’re in the same class and we do all our homework together. Wouldn’t you notice if I didn’t turn in homework?” Haru asks, raising his eyebrows at Makoto.

“ _What?_ ” Makoto squeaks, feeling like the world’s dumbest person. Haru’s right, of course, but Makoto is just on the right side of gullible enough to have been completely taken in nonetheless. “Haru! So why _are_ you here?”

Haru shrugs. “Because I didn’t have anything better to do.”

“No shit, really?” Rin mutters.

Makoto’s eyes widen as he stares at Haru. Haru looks back at him, calmly, and Makoto knows exactly why Haru is here.

_I’m here to keep you company. Idiot._

It occurs to Makoto, then, that Haru probably thinks it’s partly his fault that Makoto got slapped with detention at all in the first place, and Haru being Haru, he simply went about doing whatever he could to make it better for Makoto in his own silent way.

Makoto tries his best to fix Haru with a disapproving glare. _Don’t do something like that again!_

Haru shrugs. _Don’t go getting detention again, then._

He nods to Rin, then Makoto, and walks off without another word.

Rin’s still staring after him. “Your best friend is seriously weird.”

“He is, huh?” says Makoto.

And really, he thinks, he wouldn’t have Haru any other way.

Rin’s gaze returns to the sketch in his hand again. In spite of himself, he looks impressed. “I hate to say it, but this is a damn good drawing.”

“The cape suits you, superhero-Rin-chan,” Makoto teases him.

“Shut up,” says Rin.

Makoto laughs, then sobers. “Rin…”

Rin looks up at him.

“Don’t give up on your dream. If your dream is to protect others, there are so many ways to do it. I think you’d make a great police officer, but if you don’t want to be one any more, that’s okay, too.”

He smiles at Rin then, gently.

“But you _do_ have the strength to chase a dream. So find one. And grab it with all your might.”

Rin looks stricken for a second. He stares at Makoto, wordlessly.

The leaves swirl round their feet, wind whistling through the trees.

“Yeah,” says Rin. His voice is soft, and filled with hope. “A dream, huh?”

He folds up Haru’s drawing slowly, carefully, and puts it into his pocket, before looking up at Makoto with a smile. “Thanks, Makoto. For everything.”

They stand facing each other in silence for a while. There are so many things Makoto wants to say, but he can’t seem to find the right words.

“Well… bye, I guess,” Rin says, raising his hand and turning. He starts to walk away.

Makoto takes a deep breath, summoning up his courage. “Hey, uh, Rin…”

Rin looks back over his shoulder, pausing in his tracks.

“Will you give me your number?” asks Makoto.

Rin grins. “I thought you’d never ask. Seriously, are you always so _slow_?”

“I’ve never actually… ah, never mind,” says Makoto, feeling sheepish. He walks over to Rin, and passes him his phone.

Rin punches his number in, the grin still on his face. Their hands brush as he returns the phone. Makoto feels a jolt run up his fingertips.

“Thanks,” he says.

Rin nods. “Later.”

He turns, and walks away. He doesn’t say to Makoto, _call me_ , or _text me_ , or even _give me your number too._

He knows full well he doesn’t need to.

As Makoto watches Rin’s retreating figure grow smaller, the new warmth blossoming inside him makes every part of his body seem to tingle, and he smiles.

 

//

 

_“Dear Principal Yamada,_

_We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us - in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions._

_But what we found out is that each one of us is…_

_a brain,_  
 _and an athlete,_  
 _and a basket case,_  
 _a prince,  
_ _and a criminal._

_Does that answer your question?_

_Sincerely yours,_  
 _Ryugazaki Rei_  
 _Tachibana Makoto_  
 _Nanase Haruka_  
 _Hazuki Nagisa  
_ _Matsuoka Rin”_

**Author's Note:**

> A work like this doesn't get written in a month (on top of all my other projects!) without some serious help. 
> 
> If not for my amazing beta [Poka](http://ystoria.tumblr.com), this whole thing would have turned out very, very differently. She let me bounce all my ideas off her, wrangled this monster of a fic into submission, whipped it into shape where it was... really not, and was unrelentingly meticulous and thoughtful in her suggestions/feedback. She also named the fic for me when it was still called "The Breakfast Club AU.docx" right up to the very end (I kid you not).
> 
> THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! One day, I will write you Makoto/taping buns, ok? xD
> 
> Many, many thanks also go out to [Sora](http://soraeclipse.tumblr.com), who very gamely beta-ed the entire 20,000+ words of this fic with no prior knowledge of The Breakfast Club, and was instrumental in assuring me that it was not just some Breakfast Club crackfic that only people in the know will get :)
> 
> And once again, thank you to hythelia for the great prompt. I had such a ball of a time writing it, I'm almost sad to let it go, haha. I really hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> Comments make my day! Let me know what you think!
> 
> You can also find me [here on Tumblr](http://themorninglark.tumblr.com) :D I post mainly Free! meta and stuff.


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